Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

sections of this work. At aggregate level, I will recur to findings from literature presented in
chapter 4.1.
Afterwards, I will elaborate on the reaction of firms and of the workforce (as perceived
by the interviewees) to legislative changes, and describe the mode of negotiations on HRM
issues between the management and employee representatives. Here, I will refer to
knowledge presented in the institutional section 3.3.
In the final sub-section of this chapter, I will repeat the results of hypothesis testing. I
will also construct a typology of Polish firms along the two dimensions internalisation –
externalisation, and ´muddling through´ policies versus HRM strategy.
4.3.1. Presentation of the Studied Establishments
The firms studied in Poland employ between 200 and 2,000 workers. Firms with 500
and more workers – which I originally had intended to include in the sample – are much
more seldom in Poland than in Germany. Polish public enterprises in the past were often
organised into large combines and practised excess labour hoarding. In the course of
restructuring, they were forced to undergo a „stringent slimming diet“ (Gąciarz/Pańków
1996: 16). Moreover, as I focused on the establishment level and included only firms in my
sample which had their headquarters or a branch including the personnel department in
Southern Poland, I had to exclude many large firms with headquarters in Warsaw due to
high centralisation of business activities in Poland (see CBR 2004, quoted in Golinowska
2004: 358).
An example of formerly large industrial combines partitioned during the transformation
period is the construction company Firm PL-7. At the end of 1960s, it employed over
12,000 persons. In the 1990s, the large corporation was divided into separate business units,
of which some have already been closed. As of 2005, it employed only 270 persons at two
sites.
The average share of workers aged 50+/51+ in the 16 Polish enterprises which provided
such data is 22 per cent. In comparison to the German firm sample, it is almost three per
cent lower. The average age of the workforce in ten Polish firms which provided respective
numbers is 42.3 years – 0.4 years lower than in the German sample. It can be thus assessed
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