Open for Business: The Persistent Entrepreneurial Class in Poland by Elizabeth Osborn Kazimierz Slomczynski (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 38I Osborn, Elizabethand Slomczynski,Kazimierz. Open for Business: ThePersistent Entrepreneurial Classin Poland.IFiS Publishers, Warsaw, 2005. 280 pp. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. $28.50 (paperback). IT is arguable that entrepreneurs have been the lifeblood of the Polish economy over the last century. During the German occupation and the period of Soviet control, they exploited such niches as were permitted, and many that were not, to supply ordinaryPoles with things that the state could or would not give them. Offeredthe opportunityto thrive, especiallybetween the wars and since I989, they have blossomed in both number and variety, and their businesses now contribute about two-fifthsof the country's GDP. The reader will not, however, get much of an impression of the enormous enterprise,energyand innovationinvolvedin this achievementfromElizabeth Osborn and Kazimierz Slomczynski'sdry tome. Open for Business examines people who own small or medium-sized enterprises , other than in agriculture, which employ others besides themselves or their families, but who are actively involved in the operation of their businesses. The authors claim that the relationship between this class and Poland'spost-Communistreformsis not well understood, suggestingthat the entrepreneurialclassis both the resultof reformand the cause of the country's economic transformation.However, the book tells us almost nothing about the second of these. Rather, it examines the backgroundsof people who have become entrepreneurs, and their attitudes towards business and politics. It does so by using the resultsof a series of surveysfrom between I978 and I998, some conducted by Slomczynski,of severalthousandpeople. It also uses interviewsconducted by both authorsbetween I996 and 2002 with sixty-five entrepreneursand representativesof fifteen business organizations. Chapter two provides a brief historicalsketch of the role of entrepreneurs in Poland during the twentieth century, while chapter four compares the backgroundsof those who started businesses at various times between I949 and I993. Over that period, the likelihood that an entrepreneurwould come from a family of an urban owner or farmer,would be male and would have had only a basic level of education, all declined. However, chapter three concludes that, although Polish entrepreneurs now generally enjoy higher incomes than managers or experts the classes that were particularly favoured under Communism they are still likely to have had an inferior education. Chaptersfive and six consider the motivationsof Poland'scurrent entrepreneurs. Chapter seven examines their psychological characteristics. Chapter eight looks at entrepreneurs'attitudestowardsprivatization,and asks what sort of people are likelyto become entrepreneursin future;and chapter nine explorestheirpoliticalleanings.Entrepreneurswho have failedand those who have succeeded are examined in chapter ten, and the professionalization of the entrepreneurial class through the establishment of chambers of commerce, trade associationsand similarorganisationsis discussedin chapter eleven. A concluding chapter summarizes the findings. These are, in short, that a wide variety of personal attitudes, as well as the particular circumstances associatedwith Poland'spost-Communisttransformation,encouraged the rapid increase in entrepreneurialactivityfrom the late I980s onward. As 382 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 one might expect, Poland's newest entrepreneurs tend to be people with strongpersonalmotivation or some historyof family initiativeand prosperity. They also tend to support capitalism,privatization,democracy and Poland's entryto the EuropeanUnion. Some entrepreneurshave yet to grow out of the practices that were necessary for survivalduring Communist times, namely, informalityof contracts and corruption, but ethical standardsare rising, in part as a result of the work of the professionalbodies that have developed since I989. The authors make substantialuse of factor analysis and regression, and relatetheir findingsto wider sociologicaldebates. To this extent, Open for Businessprobably makes a contribution to the sociology of the post-Communist transformationof Centraland EasternEurope. However, the readeris offered little information about the scale, nature and structure of the enterprises whose founders were interviewed, or about the extent to which they are typical of Poland's entrepreneurialclass as a whole. Chapter six's regional analysis of factors likely to affect the emergence of entrepreneurshipis too limited to add significantlyto our understandingof the topic;and only a small proportionof the informationcollected in the interviewsappearsto have been presented.To this extent, the book will be of much less interestto economists and political scientists,let alone politicians and journalists, for all of whom relevance is claimed in the Preface, than it might otherwisehave been. Arbroath ANDREwH. DAwsON Pop, Liliana. Democratising Capitalism...