Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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AGNIESZKA REFERENCES LITERATUR K. CIANCIARA<br />
resulting from the late and largely obsolete<br />
industrialization under state socialism.<br />
In the Polish case, a crucial role was played<br />
in the privatization process by multinational<br />
corporations, which ensured capital, technology,<br />
know-how and access to foreign markets for<br />
the restructured companies. However, the first<br />
transformation phase was to a large extent<br />
dominated by capitalism from above created<br />
by the economic and technocratic elites of<br />
the ancien regime. Finally, success of private<br />
companies that did not have access to resources<br />
of the socialist economy, only became visible<br />
after the year 2000. The economic crisis in the<br />
late ‘90s eliminated actors that relied mostly on<br />
political resources and were not able to cope<br />
with requirements of the competitive market<br />
economy. The expansion of Polish private<br />
capital was also accelerated by EU membership<br />
and prospects for greater internationalization<br />
of Polish firms. However, it appears that<br />
Europeanization of economic activities has<br />
been progressing faster than Europeanization<br />
of interest representation.<br />
Polish capitalism is thus characterized by a<br />
relatively large public sector (slow pace of<br />
privatization), weak corporate governance<br />
mechanisms (especially in public sector), a<br />
relatively poor business climate, inefficient<br />
governance structures of the state, weak<br />
economic and political culturea, as well as weak<br />
institutionalization of interest representation.<br />
The public sector accounts for approximately 3%<br />
of firms operating in Poland. However, 7 out<br />
of the 10 largest companies in the year 2008<br />
were at least partially state-owned (‘500 biggest<br />
firms in Poland’ by daily Rzeczpospolita, 2009).<br />
In 2005, 162 (12.5%) of 1300 biggest firms<br />
in Poland were at least partially state-owned,<br />
but they generated 22.5% of net income and<br />
employed more than 40% of the workforce<br />
(CASE, 2007). Though in the years 2002-<br />
2007 the number of public firms among the<br />
500 biggest companies decreased from 128<br />
to 81, this was linked to the rapid expansion<br />
of Polish private capital after joining the<br />
EU in 2004, rather than to the process of<br />
privatization. The level of internationalization<br />
of Polish firms is still low and 96.3% of them<br />
are micro-firms, employing up to 9 people<br />
(Ministry of Economy, 2009).<br />
Weaknesses of the corporate governance system<br />
are particularly visible in the biggest stateowned<br />
companies 5 . In post-communist state,<br />
due to private capital shortages, the German<br />
(internal control through supervisory board),<br />
rather than Anglo-Saxon system (external<br />
control mechanisms by dispersed shareholders)<br />
was introduced. However, Central-European<br />
experience shows that control is much<br />
more effective when a company is being<br />
restructured by a foreign strategic investor.<br />
In case of continuous state ownership,<br />
the commercialization of the enterprise<br />
constitutes only a minor adjustment to formal<br />
market requirements, while petrifying existing<br />
economic, political and social networks of<br />
informal nature. Consequently, supervisory<br />
and executive boards of state-owned<br />
companies often demonstrate classic<br />
traits of political corruption ( Jarosz, Seite Page page 49<br />
2006). These executives are strongly<br />
embedded in political elites, thus the<br />
rotation in these posts depends on the current<br />
constellation of the unstable political scene.<br />
Posts are perceived as rewards for party loyalty,