Behaviour of Lithuanian Business Interest Associations

Abstract

National business interest associations and their behaviour: how they organise, mobilize members, aggregate interests, plan access strategies and manage interrelations with public policy decision-makers, etc. are influenced by the ongoing worldwide internationalisation and europeanisation of economic and political domains. The initial research stage has identified that the embedded potential of the organised business interests is underused by Lithuanian business interest associations, though the existing scientific literature reiterates that business interests are the most organised and active segment of all other interests. Thesis objective – to analyse and explain, by providing an empirical account, the development and behaviour of Lithuanian business interest associations at the national and European Union level, and to discuss the type of Lithuanian business interest associations one might expect in the future. The thesis research objective has been implemented by realising the tasks of the research: the characteristics of the landscape of Lithuanian business interest associations have been analysed, major theoretical models for the evaluation of behaviour of business interest associations and their relations with public policy institutions have been determined and the model for evaluation of the behaviour of the Lithuanian business interest associations has been constructed, the suggested model has been applied to perform the quantitative survey of Lithuanian business interest associations behaviour at national and European Union level for the first time in Lithuania and recommendations for their further development have been provided.