Ariel Ciechański

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Ariel Ciechański

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Control functions within large cities and foreign direct investment in the transport sector: Empirical evidence from Poland

Zbigniew Taylor, Ariel Ciechański

Geographia Polonica (2015) vol. 88, iss. 4, pp. 557-573 | Full text
doi: https://doi.org/GPol.0035

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Abstract

On the basis of inventory research carried out by the authors on single transport FDI, a hierarchy of the ten largest Polish cities is created, and then related to the number of inhabitants. The paper focuses on the location of corporate headquarters (HQs) serving various control (decision-making) functions and simultaneously playing an urban-creative role. The analysis confirms in part only the idea that the more advanced the branch of the economy, the more the city in which a corporate HQ is located is likely to occupy a higher rank in the administrative hierarchy, with a simultaneous large number of affiliates. The findings arise out of in-depth research, albeit on the basis of a relatively small number of incidences of foreign investment in the Polish transport sector. Whether it is the criteria of absolute amount of capital invested, number of employees or number of controlled investments, it is consistently the city of Warsaw and its metropolitan area that tops the rankings. Alongside inter-urban differentiation in transport FDI, analysis also confirms substantial intra-urban variation.

Keywords: transport, FDI, control functions, corporate headquarters, large cities, Poland

Zbigniew Taylor [z.taylor@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland
Ariel Ciechański [ariel@twarda.pan.pl], Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00‑818 Warszawa, Poland

Organizational restructuring and ownership transformation in Poland's inland shipping companies after 1990

Zbigniew Taylor, Ariel Ciechański

Geographia Polonica (2011) vol. 84, iss. 2, pp. 77-92 | Full text
doi: https://doi.org/GPol.2011.2.6

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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