Geographia Polonica (2011) vol. 84, iss. 2
Organizational restructuring and ownership transformation in Poland's inland shipping companies after 1990
Geographia Polonica (2011) vol. 84, iss. 2, pp. 77-92 | 
Full text
doi: https://doi.org/GPol.2011.2.6
Abstract
This article seeks to reconstruct organizational and ownership changes affecting Polish enterprises in inland shipping since 1990. On the basis of data from various sources (above all the Polish Registry of Ships and Bulletins of Public Information), it was possible to determine the degree of advancement of the transformation processes affecting shipping companies, these first and foremost denoting privatization and partial communalization, as well as organizational changes. A particular kind of dichotomy is observable in that, while most newly-arising enti-ties are small private shipping enterprises created as former state-owned enterprises have been divided up and their vessels sold to new owners, the systemic transformation plus Poland's EU accession have also given rise to the conditions underpinning the emergence of Europe's largest shipowners (the Odratrans group), the latter dealing with carriage by barge along inland water-ways, including beyond Poland.
Keywords: systemic transformation, inland shipping, privatization, communalization, geography of enterprises, Poland
[z.taylor@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland
[ariel@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland