APPLYING ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE MANAGEMENT TOOLS IN THE LITHUANIAN PUBLIC SECTOR

Abstract

Abstract. The paper analyses the trends of organizational resilience management in Lithuanian central government institutions based on the concept of "bounce-back," examining the impact on the organization from both the internal and external environments, incorporating the resulting uncertainty conditions conceptualized through the prism of the organization's available information for decision making. The results of an empirical qualitative study and a semi-structured interview with 22 experts in management positions from 19 central government organizations in the Lithuanian public sector suggest that performance deterioration in Lithuanian central government organizations arises from both the internal and the external environment. The study reveals that the strength and the frequency of these impacts are comparably similar in each environment, affecting organizational performance with regular and unexpected factors. Regular environmental influences tend to create conditions of moderate uncertainty, where information is either known and available or there is a constant demand for new information acquisition. Unexpected environmental influences tend to create high uncertainty conditions, where there is a persistent need for information to make decisions, escalating to not knowing what information is needed and where it can be obtained. According to the experts' responses, to manage resilience and decision-making under uncertainty, organizations need to invest in information processing and dissemination capacities through various forms of intra-organizational communication channels, with a particular emphasis on the free flow of information between each other and on a substantive, live communication between managers, both limiting and expanding the information provided. Effective knowledge management and learning processes that help organizations adapt to changing conditions are best supported by personnel who possess institutional memory, suitable digitization of management information, and active engagement in national networking (or international networking if no national equivalent exists). Inadequate preparation for periods of negative impact disrupts the organization's information exchange, and the learning element becomes unmanageable, especially if the negative impact situations are frequent and unforeseen, depriving the organization of the necessary time to "breathe in, look back and learn, consolidate learning."

Keywords: public management, organizational resilience management, bounce-back, conditions of uncertainty, qualitative research.