Research Topics of Geography of Enterprise and Decision-Control Functions in Poland against Global Trends

Abstract

The article is a review of the research conducted in Poland on geography of enterprise, understood as a sub-discipline within the scope of socio-economic geography, including research on the behaviour of economic entities, especially large ones, in geographical space. First, the fundamental methodological issues, including terminology, were discussed and then the source query was made. It allowed for identifying about 200 bibliographic items, of which about ten are discussed in detail as the most representative of this research speciality. The results of the study are discussed in two periods: before 1989 and after that date, as the fundamental influence of the political change and the rebirth of the free market economy in Poland after the communist period. In the modern period, three main research trends have been distinguished, referring to global research: transformational-globalisation, localisation (also called organisational-systemic) and behavioural. Moreover, urban research is discussed. In conclusion, geography of enterprise is still too weakly defined in Poland, and it is conducted from the “industry” positions of geography (especially geography of industry), which results from the institutional and organisational assumptions of the Polish socio-economic geography after the methodological conference in Osieczna in 1955.