| Topic title |
Possible scientific supervisors |
Source of funding |
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Reverse Innovation in the Global Value Chain
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prof. dr. Maximilian Joachim Von Zedtwitz |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
This project aims at combining the concept of Reverse Innovation with the concept of Global Value Chain, advancing innovation and international business theory from its current product-centered manufacturing orientation with greater focus on knowledge, IP and capability transfer. The research is at the intersection of innovation management (“TIM”) and international business theory (“IB”).
Specifically, the ambitions in this project are:
1. Building and extending database of product, service, technology and organizational reverse innovations, incl. webscraping and AI-supported tool development.
2. Extending an existing typology of Reverse Innovation into a proper theory of bi-modal transnational innovation.
3. Developing in-depth case studies of reverse innovation from multiple countries in multiple companies at product modularity levels.
4. Analyzing global innovation strategies and practices of multinational firms.
The project is carried out in collaboration with international partners in Denmark, France, and Brazil.
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Leveraging Open Innovation Strategies for Health Data Sharing: Pathways to Value Creation in Healthcare Ecosystems
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prof. dr. Asta Pundzienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
The increasing digitization of healthcare presents significant opportunities for open innovation through health data sharing, enabling collaborative value creation among stakeholders. Despite this potential, inconsistencies in the adoption and application of shared health data highlight a critical research gap, particularly in strategies that translate data sharing into tangible healthcare outcomes. This doctoral research explores the question of How can health data sharing through open innovation frameworks drive value creation in healthcare ecosystems? The study aims to investigate the dynamics of health data sharing by focusing on four objectives: analyzing its role in fostering stakeholder collaboration, identifying barriers and enablers, exploring value creation through applications like personalized medicine and predictive analytics, and proposing an integrated framework for open innovation strategies. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research examines case studies and evaluates the socio-economic impact of health data sharing. The findings are expected to expand open innovation frameworks and provide actionable insights to enhance collaboration, ensure data security, and maximize societal and economic benefits in healthcare systems.
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Employee and organizational resilience strengthening through socially responsible human resource management
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prof. dr. Živilė Stankevičiūtė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Crises seem to have become regular events, which pose increasing challenges to the organizations (Chen et al., 2021). Recently, the number of studies has been growing while demonstrating that organizational survival and effectiveness depend on the ability of organizations and employees to withstand and adapt to significant challenges, that is, on their resilience (Naswall et l., 2019). Generally, resilience is understood to be the capacity to rebound, ‘to come back’ from adversity, uncertainty, conflict, failure, or even positive change (Luthans, 2002).
In a dynamic business environment, the concept of resilience is crucial to understanding how employees and organizations successfully handle adversity (Hartmann et al., 2021; Cani?ls and Hatak, 2022). Resilient employees can navigate in a turbulent society, deal with stress and cope with adverse conditions more effectively (Kakkar, 2019). Organizational resilience is the most direct factor explaining the longevity and competitive advantage of particular organization.
Given the relevance of employee resilience and organizational resilience, the factors fostering resilience needs to be disclosed. Relying on the notion of Luthans (2002) that resilience can be developed through management practices, the proposed research argues that human resource management (HRM) could serve as an appropriate antecedent. However, the previous studies did not include the sustainability dimension in HRM while analyzing the way HRM promotes the resilience. The paper seeks to close the existing gap by introducing socially responsible HRM (Diaz?Carrion et al., 2019) as a driver for promoting resilience. Therefore, the scientific problem is formulated by the question: which and how socially responsible HRM practices strengthen the employee resilience and organizational resilience.
The research aim is to reveal socially responsible HRM practices that strengthen the employee resilience and organizational resilience.
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Artificial Intelligence Adoption in Nordic-Baltic Listed Firms: A Topic Modeling Approach on Corporate Reports
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prof. dr. Mantas Vilkas |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption is a transformative force in modern business, offering organizations opportunities to innovate, optimize processes, and improve decision-making. However, the scope and nature of AI, especially GenAI, and its usage across industries remain underexplored due to limitations in traditional analysis methods. Rich in qualitative information, corporate reports provide a valuable yet underutilized resource for uncovering insights into AI strategies, applications, and challenges. This study aims to reveal AI adoption patterns and effects by leveraging advanced topic modeling techniques to analyze the corporate reports of NASDAQ Nordic-Baltic-listed firms (~1000 firms). By processing textual data through methods such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and BERTopic, the study will identify patterns, themes, and trends related to AI adoption. The research will contribute to the digital transformation and AI research areas by) revealing AI adoption trends in North Europe; b) proposing typology of AI applications (i.e., analytical vs generative AI; reactive vs proactive AI); c) linking types of AI with corporate performance; c) providing data on Nordic-Baltic region which is ready to compare with other regional AI adoption trends and effects. The findings are expected to inform corporate decision-makers, policymakers, and researchers by shedding light on how firms capitalize on AI’s potential while addressing its inherent challenges, thereby enabling more targeted and effective digital transformation strategies.
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| Linking organic food consumption to sustainable consumer well-being |
prof. dr. Aušra Rūtelionė |
state-funded |
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Integration of digital technologies in the audit of ESG reports
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prof. dr. Lina Dagilienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
ESG reporting is becoming important mechanism to reflect on companies’ externalities (Dechow, 2023). Due to increasing regulatory pressures, reporting data and greenwashing trends, this research intends to explore the assurance of ESG reports by combining a multi-stakeholder theory approach and the role of digital technologies. ESG reporting and assurance is a complex process, because the complexity and diversity of information sources (Das, 2023) and measures can inhibit information reliability, accuracy, and objectivity (Alles et al., 2022). Therefore it can be difficult for companies to fully incorporate sustainability information into their reporting practices (Liu et al., 2023). Digitalization has combined with expanding reporting data to address this complexity, creating new ways to measure, analyze, and audit.
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Believable agents for public policy forecasting and decision making
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doc. dr. Rimantas Rauleckas |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Large language model-enabled agent-based modeling introduces new possibilities for social science research by equipping agents with human-like decision-making and cognitive capabilities. Initiatives like believable agents (Park et al. 2023) lay the groundwork for applying these methods to public policy analysis and testing theoretical models commonly represented as directed acyclic graphs in fields like management. This research aims to leverage AI-developed frameworks to forecast public policy outcomes and dynamically simulate theoretical models in management studies.
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The Interplay of Leader Behaviour and Work Environment in Relation to Employee Stress
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prof. dr. Asta Savanevičienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Work-related stress remains one of the most pressing issues in modern organizations, with serious implications for both individual well-being and organizational performance. On the one hand, the growing demands of the work environment and, on the other hand, personal ambitions create an ambiguous situation that could be described as the “Harm/Benefit Paradox” (Litchfield et al., 2016). The statement that “work can be harmful” (Litchfield et al., 2016) implies a situation without a way out that requires new insights. Recently, the Job Demands-Resources Theory has been rethought, introducing several propositions from a job design perspective (Demerouti & Bakker, 2023). Although, a leader has long been argued to be a major factor in determining the stress levels of followers (Harms et al, 2017), however, leader behaviour can serve as a key resource that mitigates the impact of high job demands (work environment stressors) on employee stress as well (Lundqvist, et al., 2022; Demerouti & Bakker, 2007). Nevertheless, previous research has largely focused on either leader behaviour or work environment as independent contributors to employee stress (Bakker & Demerouti, 2020). Still, little attention has been paid to their interactive impact on employee stress.
Research aims to investigate how leader behaviour influences employees' stress responses within varying work environments, focusing on the interplay between leadership style and work environment factors.
Research objectives: 1) Explore how leader behaviour mitigates or amplifies the impact of work environment stressors (e.g., workload, role ambiguity, organisational culture, processes, and procedures) on employee stress. 2) Identify certain combinations of leader behaviour and work environment characteristics that reduce employee stress more effectively than others.
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Socio-cultural impact of the national capital of culture
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prof. dr. Raminta Pučėtaitė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
The topic of the thesis is assessing the social and cultural impact of national capitals of culture. The aim of the thesis is to develop a model for assessing the positive socio-cultural impact of a National Capital of Culture, based on best practice in other countries, by linking the retrospective experiences of individuals and communities to the visions of political leaders, communities and municipal strategic plans.
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Activities and accountability of non-governmental organizations in the context of digital transformation
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doc. dr. Šviesa Leitonienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Digital transformation creates great opportunities and new challenges for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their stakeholders. While many of the challenges posed by digital transformation are universal, NGOs are in a slightly more complex situation due to the diversity of their stakeholders, regulation, funding, and limited resources. Compared to other sectors, the NGO sector faces more political, social, economic, and cultural challenges as NGOs seek to target the most needy and vulnerable members of society. For this reason, the role of accountability of non-governmental organizations to society, which is fundamentally changed by technology, is certainly different from that in other sectors. And today, questions still arise about how digital transformation can facilitate and improve NGO operations and accountability? What new challenges does this entail? And can digital technologies help to reshape stakeholder relations and ensure equal attention to all stakeholders? Or, in contrast, only increases inequality and exclusion? This shows that the impact of digital technology on the operations and accountability of non-governmental organizations is complex, encompassing not only technological and organizational aspects but also ethical aspects. Thus, the objective of the dissertation would be to investigate the impact of digital transformation on NGO activity and accountability to different stakeholders.
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| Enhancement of organisational social impact through CSR and quality management systems |
prof. dr. Eglė Staniškienė |
state-funded |
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Decent Work and the Well-Being of Vulnerable Workers
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prof. dr. Vilmantė Kumpikaitė-Valiūnienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Globalization and digitalization have increased workplace diversity while also expanding the number of vulnerable workers, characterized by age, ethnicity, gender, and skill levels. These groups, including migrants and transgender individuals, often face barriers to decent work, discrimination, and inequality, which adversely affect their well-being. This study aims to explore how specific vulnerable groups define and perceive the boundaries of decent work and its influence on their well-being. Using a mixed-methods approach and guided by the Psychology of Working Theory, the research will identify key dimensions of decent work and provide actionable insights to address workplace inequalities and promote inclusion.
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Benchmarking Industrial Global R&D and Innovation
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prof. dr. Maximilian Joachim Von Zedtwitz |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
This project aims to build the world’s largest database of the industrial R&D centers, and use this data to develop a new models for science and technology policy, corporate strategy, and international business theory. The research is at the intersection of innovation management (“TIM”) and international business theory (“IB”).
Specifically, the ambitions in this project are:
1. Building and extending the GLORAD database, incl. webscraping and AI-supported tool development.
2. Analyzing the global R&D attractiveness of countries over time.
3. Proposing a global innovation trade balance indicator that measures global technology investments between net importing and net exporting countries.
4. Analyzing global innovation strategies of multinational firms.
The project is carried out in collaboration with international partners in Denmark, France, and California.
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The role of the project manager's mindfulness in the stakeholders engagement in the creation of social value of the project
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prof. dr. Rūta Čiutienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Mindfulness is gaining increasing attention in the project management community. Scientific research shows that awareness is an important factor that enables changes and innovations created by projects, increases flexibility, resilience, adaptability and effectiveness of teams. This leads to the successful involvement of project stakeholders in the creation of social value (Daniel et al., 2023; Stuart-Edwards et al., 2023). Scientific problem: How does the project manager's mindfulness strengthen the involvement of project stakeholders? How does the involvement of project stakeholders affect the creation of the project's social value? The goal is to theoretically substantiate and empirically verify the links between the mindfulness of the project manager and the involvement of project stakeholders from the point of view of creating the social value of the project. Objectives: 1.To perform an analysis of the social concept of project value and involvement of project stakeholders, to identify the factors determining involvement and connections with the creation of project value. 2.To define the concept of mindfulness in project management, identifying the components of awareness relevant to the project manager and their connections with the involvement of the project's stakeholders, creating the social value of the project. 3.After evaluating the role of the project manager's mindfulness of the involvement of interested parties in creating the social value of the project, a conceptual model for compiling the results of theoretical and empirical research, which includes the links between the project manager's mindfulness, the involvement of stakeholders and the created social value of the project. 4.To prepare the research methodology and to perform the substantiation of the conceptual model of the connections between the mindfulness of the project manager, the involvement of stakeholders and the created social value of the project.
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| Stakeholder engagement and value creation to achieve sustainability – oriented innovation in global supply chains |
prof. dr. Jurgita Sekliuckienė |
state-funded |
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Emotional and Behavioural Consumer Responses to the Sustainability-Related Nudging: The Role of Moral Foundations, Curiosity, and Scepticism
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doc. dr. Agnė Gadeikienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
Climate change is a pressing global concern, with 77% of EU citizens identifying it as a serious issue and 22% viewing it as the top global challenge. While consumer pro-environmental awareness is growing, it often fails to lead to sustainable behaviour. Nudging, a subtle strategy to influence behaviour without limiting choice, can bridge this gap through techniques like default options, framing, and social proof, encouraging sustainable decisions. Consumer responses to nudging can be influenced by moral foundations, alongside curiosity and scepticism. While curiosity promotes engagement and reduces scepticism, mistrust related to greenwashing can hinder sustainable behaviour. This doctoral research will investigate emotional and behavioural responses to sustainability-related nudges and explore the role of moral foundations, curiosity, and scepticism. Using traditional and neuromarketing methods, it will seek to uncover psychological mechanisms and provide insights for effective strategies to advance sustainability.
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Consumer-AI-based Chatbots Interaction in Emotionally Charged Contexts: An Examination of Coping Strategies and Their Impact on Attitudinal and Behavioral Outcomes
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doc. dr. Beata Šeinauskienė |
state-funded |
Research Topic Summary.
The inconsistent findings regarding the influence of AI-powered chatbot anthropomorphism on consumer experience underscore the necessity for further research in this area. For example, humanized AI recommenders have shown greater efficacy than non-humanized AI recommenders in the case of hedonic products (Wien and Peluso, 2021). Other studies, however, indicate that the anthropomorphism of chatbots negatively affects customer satisfaction and future purchase intentions when an interaction is with consumers experiencing anger (Crolic, Thomaz, Hadi, and Stephen, 2022). Other research, however, found that anthropomorphised chatbots did not reduce the negative effects of anger on satisfaction (Tang, Wang, Zhou, Guo, and Li, 2024).
Literature suggests that consumer reaction may depend on the interaction agent - whether a human or an AI-based chatbot provides customer service. The question arises whether consumers are more likely to express their emotions to AI-based chatbots or humans. Further, do emotional venting patterns differ between interactions with AI-based chatbots and humans? What role does the emotional expression of an AI-based chatbot play in eliciting different consumer reactions in emotionally charged contexts? This research aims to explore how and why the agency (human versus AI-based chatbot) affects consumer propensity for emotional venting in emotionally charged situations and, subsequently, consumer satisfaction and behavioural outcomes (attitudes, intentions). It also seeks to understand the role of AI-based chatbot anthropomorphism in influencing consumer emotion regulation strategies.
A deeper understanding of the AI-based chatbot-consumer interaction phenomenon during states of negative emotions could yield valuable practical implications for enhancing consumer experiences.
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