Although there is consensus on the increasing role of emerging and developing economies in global markets, the literature on the mechanisms contributing to their growth remains still limited. The research aims to contribute to knowledge by exploring and understanding the process of transformation from a centrally planned economy into a market based economy. This transformation process is analysed from the perspective of a Venture Capital industry emerging and developing in Poland. The research focuses on the dynamics of particular factors and their impact on a specific set of stakeholders. In order to take a sufficiently broad contextual view, an organizational theory approach was employed. The Venture Capital industry was treated as a community of organizations which are connected by direct or indirect relationships. The interpretative framework was provided by two leading organizational theories: Institutional theory and Resource Dependence theory. The research is qualitative, and is guided by a specially designed framework for collecting and analysing the data. The primary data were collected though semi structured interviews with Venture Capital industry stakeholders of different types, and with different roles in the process. The research contributes to knowledge at three levels. Firstly, it addresses the literature gap on emergence of the Venture Capital industry in Poland. Secondly, it contributes to an understanding of the process of the emergence of a Venture Capital industry and economic transformation. Thirdly, findings may contribute to policy recommendations formulated to accelerate effective development in financial services.

Poland's political fate and the plight of her exiles during the nineteenth century evoked a mixed response from various sectors of the British population. Five separate aspects of pro-Polish sympathy have been analyzed. The Literary Association's efforts to raise money for the relief of refugees resident in Great Britain were severly hampered and finally crippled by public opinion hostile to charity for foreigners in the midst of domestic distress. Agitation designed to place pressure on the Government to intervene by force in order to re-establish the independence of Poland was never sufficiently strong between 1832 and 1867 to deflect the Government from pursuing a course dictated by national interests. This has been illustrated by a study of public opinion and official policy towards the restoration of Poland during the Crimean War. The attitude of several of the more important religious denominations to the Polish question was not uniform. Roman Catholics feared the destruction of Papal possessions in the event of Polish revolutionary fervour reaching Italy; Anglo-Jewry tended to be absorbed in the problem of its own disabilities while it was difficult for the Poles as a predominantly Catholic nation to avoid giving offence to the Established Church and dissenting sects. Anglo-Polish masonic contacts produced a new form of passive Polonophilism quite distinct from the conventional pattern of demonstrative sympathy for Poland but equally futile from the political point of view. Polish experience of foreign oppression was far more relevant for Irish nationalists than for the English. A backward agrarian economy and the Roman Catholic religion also drew the two nations together. Ireland, however, could offer nothing more substantial to the Poles than moral support and in return was able to profit from sophisticated Polish theories of insurrection.

In this thesis I describe the complex uses and symbolic resonances of fur clothing in Krakow. During my fieldwork, fur emerged as an object that was at once quotidian and evocative of an uncommonly weighty set of associations. I describe fur industry workers’ ideas about how the production and consumption of fur changed throughout the twentieth century, from its status as a nationalized industry under socialism to its status in post-European Union accession Poland. Informants rely heavily on fur’s physical features, its materiality, when discussing the ways in which fur is an object to be passed through families. I demonstrate the ways in which beliefs about inheritance are heavily contingent upon the local understanding of work as a practice that creates adult personhood. The sections of the thesis which focus on the employment trajectories of furriers show, when placed alongside chapters that explore how fur is passed through generations, that whilst informants value highly both material and intangible inheritances from older kin, they also emphasise the importance of individual action, such as entrepreneurialism. I use the multiple ways in which fur can be interpreted: as part of a dead animal and as a valuable ‘textile’ amongst other meanings, to unpack local understandings of difference and social stratification, taking into account that ‘class’ is a term seldom used in Krakow. ‘Generation’ has a specific function and meaning within Krakowian society as a type of difference that is naturalized and easily spoken of. This contrasts with differences in religion and in class, local understandings of both of which are elucidated by fur due to its associations with, firstly, both Polish Judaism and Polish Catholicism and, secondly, bourgeois ways of being and ideas about poverty in Krakow.

This thesis examines the roots of antisemitic rhetoric expressed by Polish nationalists between 1918 and 1939. I argue that nationalist rhetoric and political campaigns during this period focused on calling for Poles to defend themselves against Jewish economic and political domination. The first half of this work utilizes pamphlets, books, newspaper articles, and other written works wherein Polish nationalists, in particular members of the National Democratic Party(NDP), expressed a fear of Polish Jews and called for their eviction from the country. Fear that Poland, a country that had been partitioned by surrounding empires for the past two centuries, would not last long as an independent country were central in the rhetoric of these authors. In their eyes, Jews threatened Poland’s already compromised political and economic position. Throughout the 1930s, the NDP and other nationalist groups began to call for Jews to emigrate. The second half of this thesis uses three Polish counties (Siedlce, Sokołów Podlaski, and Węgrów) as a case study to examine the effects of the NDP’s campaign of boycotting Jewish businesses. All three counties had large Jewish populations concentrating in mostly urban areas. I undertake this study by examining reports produced by the Starosta Powiatowy, a state official in charge of describing political activities, crimes, and other major events in a given county. The reports revealed that there was a correlation between the increase in the NDP agitating for boycotts in 1936 and increased reports of Jewish families being terrorized by people breaking their windows. By examining these dynamics, I illuminate some of the political, cultural, and economic forces that contributed to the rise of antisemitism in interwar Poland. In addition to emphasizing the NDP’s language of national self-defense, thesis also highlights some of the impacts of this rhetoric.

Grenzen sind soziale Tatsachen, die sich räumlich manifestieren – etwa wenn Schmuggler und Grenzschützer an Grenzübergängen aufeinandertreffen und in ritualisierter Form Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten des Grenzübertritts aushandeln. Das Grenzgeschehen wird in diesem Beitrag in soziologisch-ethnologischer Perspektive am Beispiel des Kaliningrader Grenzgebiets betrachtet.

Is there a theory of transformation? While most scholarship focuses on describing the causes, mechanisms and consequences of social change in the postcommunist area, this article tries to reflect theoretically on system transformation, using the Polish case as an example. The author argues that the social change involved is more a change in social structure, culture and consciousness than a political, economic and technologic process.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): David S. Yost. Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-49). Also available online.

Thèse--Université de Paris. / "Notice bibliographique": p. i-vi.

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