A new model of the organisation and operation of old industrial enterprises

Abstract

In the analysis of changes occurring in large Polish enterprises, special attention was paid to organisational changes as one of the chief aspects of their adaptation to the new economic conditions that also involves the formation of new spatial relations. The analysis makes use of the notional apparatus of the organisation and management science as a discipline concerned with changes in organisation and connected with the geography of enterprises.To give an empirical illustration of the changes, examples are provided of the restructuring of large enterprises like H. Cegielski Poznań S.A. and LECH Browary Wielkopolski S.A. (now Kompania Piwowarska S.A.). On the basis of the empirical research, several features were distinguished to characterise the organisational changes that had taken place in the chosen industrial plants. The organisational changes have mainly made the structures of those plants more flexible through giving autonomy to their internal organisational units, outsourcing and spin-offs. The result has been the appearance of a lot of new small and medium-sized businesses that have taken over the functions given up by the large enterprises. The spatial effect of those changes, in turn, has been the emergence of industrial agglomerations of a new type, with a large number of smaller firms connected through a cooperation network and chiefly performing orders of the large enterprises. Thus, what we observe here is a spatial concentration of collaborating firms and the appearance of agglomeration economies.There are also integration processes in which enterprises join the structures of international corporations, which makes them elements of the modern international industrial space and a part of the industrial networks set up by multinational firms.