Research on sustainable development in Lithuanian organizations

The today's dilemma of the world, mostly governed by economic powers, lies in the following: at what scope sustainable development could be adequately analyzed and realized, referring to contemporary economic theories. It should be noted that economic development orientations and concepts, valid in the previous century, cannot satisfy the humanity's needs and they have only a limited application spectrum in environmental protection studies. The situation supposes the necessity to propose new approaches and to define the essence of economic theory, its potential role and tasks, in solving issues related to critical human existence and civilization survival in the future. Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Sustainable development is based on three dimensions: economic development, social development, and environmental protection. So there exists a big academic and practical problem - insufficient understandings of sustainability at organizational level. The aim of this paper is to investigate sustainable development in Lithuanian organizations searching of employees' opinion about sustainability in organizations. The object of the research is sustainable development in organizations. The tasks of the paper: to analyze the concepts of sustainable development at organizational level; to make research trying to identify opinions about sustainable development in Lithuanian organizations.The methods used: analysis of scientific articles, comparison and analysis of the survey with the help of SPSS methodology (program version 17.1). For carrying out the research, a questionnaire was prepared with the list of given answers. The research included 381 respondents. In the research participated 40,5 percent of men and 59,6 percent of women. 36,5 percent of the respondents were working in public institutions and 63,5 percent were working in the private capital organizations. The majority of the respondents were from 26 to 34 years old with university education. According to their position in organizations 17,5 percent were higher level managers, 20,8 percent - middle level managers, 8,1 percent - the lowest level managers and 53,6 percent - workers without any subordinates. The biggest part of the respondents was working in service organizations. The analysis suggests that many factors are associated with sustainability components and are usually used in organizations. Analyzing how many attention organizations pay to all of the sustainable development components, the research shows that most attention organizations give to new ideas that stimulate profit seeking - the mean is 2,84, moda 3. (Analyzing this data: 1 is given for the lowest attention, 3 is given for the higher attention for one of sustainable development aspects). Also big attention is paid to organizations' quality standards that improve the image of an advantage over other organizations - mean 2,64, moda 3. The least attention is paid to clear and purposeful leadership including workers into strategic creation - mean 1,98, moda - 2. While analyzing the variables' rank data the Spearmen correlation is given. Statistically significant correlation is observed between the majority of the given sustainable development aspects.A strong correlation exists between these aspects: keeping to work ethic and creating the organizational culture that promotes collaboration in the organization; the correlation coefficient is 0,704. A middle statistical significant correlation is between these aspects: quality standards that improve the image of an advantage over other organizations; creating an ergonomic environment for the organization - 0,631; clear and purposeful leadership including workers into strategic creation and keeping to work ethic 0,676. ANOVA test showed that the respondents' choice of options on how much attention the organization pay to the ecological (environmental) sustainability aspects depended on the area in which organizations realize their work, p <0.05. There should be noted that public institutions and service organizations rarely use safe environmentally production. The results show that there is statistical relationship between the social sustainable development and the aspects of the organization's activities - p