Social Factors in the Emergence of Polish Corporate Governance

Abstract

This book sits within the contemporary business history school while itself mirroring much of Poland’s systemic evolution. From early discussions and framework development in the early 2000s, conducting qualitative research to obtain necessary data gathered in the period 2007-2014, the work was ultimately published in 2020. The publisher, WSB-NLU is a leading higher education institution that went through the entire post-communist systemic transformation experience, as it was created in 1991 and evolved with the Polish system, taking on a notable role in the education of early managerial elites in Poland. In 2025 an opportunity arose to reapproach the nearly two decades of analytical efforts for a second edition. Unfortunately, a full update was impossible, as a new set of primary research was needed covering the last decade, while the original interviewee contacts were mostly lost (denying the chance for a notable longitudinal study of Polish systemic evolution). Instead, an update, a delicate contextualisation was chosen, bringing in some developments from recent years to show what came after the researched period of systemic change. All else remains mostly unchanged (some small changes to the text or data were possible with historical hindsight), presenting not just the historical facts but also keeping the research perspective of the time.