Towards Understanding the Polish Economic Culture

This paper addresses the question of a possible incompatibility between the economic culture of the Polish society & new institutions introduced during the processes of transformation to a market economy & accession to the European Union. Economic culture is understood in the paper in terms of value systems, cognitive schemes, & patterns of behavior. Two dimensions are proposed for the analysis of economic culture: governance & entrepreneurship. Governance is analyzed in terms of the dominant type of social ties, attitudes toward formal institutions, criteria for "social payments," & the dominant type of interaction. Entrepreneurship, in turn, is understood in terms of the prevailing logic (nature) of entrepreneurship, time orientation, attitudes toward money, & attitudes toward wealth. The last part of the paper sketches a tentative, working description of Polish economic culture. 64 References. Adapted from the source document.