Management and Leadership Development Needs: The Case of Latvia

This chapter presents the results of research conducted in Latvia in the framework of the CEEMAN exploratory study about management and leadership development needs in dynamic societies. To set the context, it provides a brief overview of the main features and trends of the Latvian economy and describes the main features of Latvia’s management education. As part of the empirical research, we conducted 21 qualitative interviews at 11 companies with executive-level managers—chief executive officers and human resource managers—and ran an online questionnaire among human resource professionals representing a variety of sectors: banking, retail, construction, IT services, transport, and food manufacturing. The research findings are based on an analysis of the qualitative and quantitative data. The chapter presents the main challenges Latvian companies are facing, describes how they are addressing these challenges, looks into management development patterns, discusses the missing links between the corporate world and educational institutions, and offers recommendations for management education providers. The research in Latvia, as opposed to the research in other countries participating in the project, addressed an additional issue and investigated the skills companies require from job applicants. These findings are also presented in this chapter.