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The paper investigates the utility of economic theory for post‐Communist economic transformation. It serves to explain the main reasons for market reform failure in different post‐Communist countries.

A literature review suggests that after the collapse of the Communist system there was no economic theory of transition to market. Whenever one considers the transition of post‐Communist economies to a market system (which, in fact, is nothing but post‐Communist transition to capitalist economies), it has to be placed on record, as this kind of transition has no precedent in history.

The main mistake of gradualists stems from their overlooking some very important conditions for successful transition: political guarantees and internal assets for reforms. And the success of shock therapy rests on the paradox, “the worse, the better”.

There is as yet no special economic theory of post‐Communist transformation and it is just developing. This paper helps one to understand the main features of shock therapy and gradualism for designing the framework of such a theory. It is geared towards researchers and students interested in the theoretical aspects of the post‐Communist economic transition to markets.

This paper examines the transformation of Syrian political economy from 1970 until 2005. I argue that Syria has undergone two important phases of political and economic transformation, from building a centralized state and economy in the early 1970s to embarking on the path of market economy in the early 1990s. With the logic of competitiveness guiding the direction of economic development, the socio-economic changes of the mid-1980s and after have corresponded with an important process of class and state formation. After a brief discussion of the current transition in Syria, the following sections of the paper attempt to provide a critical study of the different strategies for economic development. Section two examines the process of state and economic centralization of the 1970s and 1980s and highlights the contradictions of this period. Section three assesses the impact of economic liberalization through a study of competitiveness in the economic policies of the 1990s and 2000. The final section examines the economic and political impasse that Syria has been faced with. In conclusion, I argue that the current path of market economy as the strategy for capital accumulation has not resolved the socio-economic problems that Syria has faced in the last two decades. This strategy will continue to face contestation by marginalized groups such as factions of the Baath Party, landless peasants, workers and small producers as Syria becomes even more integrated into the regional and global economy.

Using various macro-level measures of economic and political performance Shleifer and Treisman (2005) and Treisman (2014) call Russia a “normal country” implying that Russia’s economic and political development is not deviating from the other middle-income or transition countries significantly. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this proposition and investigate whether Russia is a normal country in terms of entrepreneurship by comparing Russia with other post-socialist and similarly developed countries.

Many studies have examined Russia’s institutional setup to explain its deficiencies in entrepreneurial activity. However, there is a lack of comprehensive research taking into account both the individual and institutional dimensions of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The authors use the Global Entrepreneurship Index (GEI) methodology to analyze Russia’s quality-related individual as well as institutional features from a system perspective in a single model.

Russia’s performance has been poor relative to the post-socialist countries and to most of the former republics of the Soviet Union. Russia’s entrepreneurial profile is different from other transition and similarly developed non-transition countries, as well. Russia’s scores are less than the scores of other post-socialist countries in six out of the nine pillars of entrepreneurial attitudes and abilities. In sum, conditions supporting entrepreneurship in Russia lag seriously behind other post-socialist countries. Moreover, Russia’s individual scores are even lower than the institutional ones. Hence, improving the hostile environment alone would not be sufficient for entrepreneurship development.

Although, there have been numerous studies analyzing Russia’s macroeconomic conditions, institutional development, and entrepreneurship, there is lack of comprehensive studies. Besides common macro-level measures, the authors use a unique, GEI data set that combines institutional factors relating to entrepreneurship or new business creation with measures of individual capabilities, motivations, and attitudes about entrepreneurship. The single-model framework reveals that individual factors are even greater obstacles to entrepreneurship development in Russia than the institutional factors that most studies focus on.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive review of empirical research on performance management (PM) in former communist Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, to evaluate the state of knowledge in this area and suggest possible directions for future research.

An examination of the literature was undertaken to review the empirical studies treating on PM in ex-communist countries from CEE. A total of 96 journal articles, PhD thesis, and conference papers were identified, categorized, and analyzed according to research questions, methodology, and theoretical framework. Contributions are classified by countries, according to progress in transition process (post-transition/transition countries) and membership in the Soviet Union (Soviet/non-Soviet countries). The review examines publications in four languages (English, French, Romanian, and Russian).

The literature review identified various stages of development of PM research and practice in the different groups of CEE countries.

In post-transition CEE countries, PM research follows the trends settled up in the developed countries (quantitative studies examining the extent of usage of different PM tools, influence of contingent factors, relationship PM-strategy, and impact on company’s performance). Also, the findings illustrate the modernization of PM practices: increasing importance of nonfinancial indicators and integrated performance management systems (PMS), although financial indicators are prevailing.

On the contrary, in transition countries PM research and practices are at an early stage, the reviewed literature highlights some specific issues related to transition context: the dynamic aspect of PM, change management, importance of informal systems, cultural aspects, and business traditions.

Because of the large number of CEE countries and the diversity of their national languages, many studies conducted in native languages have not been addressed in this literature review, which is essentially based on publications in English and French. Only for three CEE countries (Russia, Romania, and Moldova) publications in national language were considered.

This literature review may be useful for practitioners, providing insights on the extent of diffusion and usage of different PM tools and identifying difficulties and pitfalls to avoid in their implementation.

The chapter represents one of the first contributions to the knowledge about PM research and practice in former communist CEE countries. The adopted framework for reviewing and classifying the literature allows identifying the differences in PM research and practices between post-transition/transition and Soviet/non-Soviet countries.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Polish economic situation was extremely difficult: high public debt, shortages, high inflation and more than 8,000 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) waiting to be restructured and/or privatised; along with a GDP per capita lower than in Ukraine.

This chapter provides an overview of the Polish economic transition, and presents the results of this process, taking into account four aspects of the changes, i.e. stabilisation, liberalisation, institutional reforms and privatisation. Special attention is paid to intentionally unfinished privatisation and the still significant role of state-owned enterprises, which have remained important economic agents.

Critical analyses were made of the literature dedicated to the economic transition and of the role and characteristics of state-owned enterprises. Empirical evidence is drawn from original datasets about the scale of SOEs in the contemporary economy and rotations in management and supervisory boards in Polish joint-stock companies.

Despite the unfavourable initial conditions, Poland soon emerged as a leader in economic growth, successfully stabilising, liberalising and privatising its economy. The institutional foundations of a democratic market economy were consistently built, and the applications for membership in the OECD, the EU and NATO were an important driver of institutional reforms. In terms of state institutions, political and economic freedom and quality of governance, Poland is more similar to the G7 countries than to the other post-socialist countries, though the need to maintain high-quality state institutions is still a priority. The significant share of SOE is regarded as a challenge of the Polish economy because state-owned enterprises are an object of rent-seeking by politicians and political parties.

The paper seeks to focus on the results of Poland's transition from central planning to market economy and from communist regime to democracy. It attempts to answer the question of fulfilling the transition's aims and expectations, identifying main successes and failures observed in Poland today.

The paper is based on the literature review of the socialistic state's and transition process's main characteristics and a set of data and research provided by institutions and centres illustrating the current stage of economic and social development in Poland. The analysis uses statistical data comparing the pre‐transition period with the economic and social indices for 2006.

The evidence collected during 18 years of transition process and data on the current situation provide a unique opportunity to test whether the formulated goals were achieved. The analysis reveals substantial improvement in all economic indicators referring to macroeconomic stability, inflation and growth rates and private sector activity, while the social conditions related to unemployment and recent emigration to Western Europe, income distribution, homelessness and poverty ratios remain disappointing.

The paper presents the current stage of Polish society and economy, not discussing the problems of other CEEC countries that underwent a transition process in 1989 (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary). Moreover, the economic and social development remains highly dynamic, particularly due to substantial EU funds currently invested in Poland. Since the analysis is based on data 1989‐2006 one may expect changes in Poland's society and economy in the very near future.

The paper points up the difficulty of formulating the agenda of the transition process which would assure balancing of the economic as well as social goals. Moreover, it suggests that institutions and systems building seems to be easier, while transition sets significant challenges for society and its ability to adjust to new conditions.

The analysis sheds light on the discussion of the state's orientation towards social responsibility on a macro scale, since the impact and strategies of state formulate patterns and a regulatory framework for the corporate legal environment (e.g. working conditions), rules of behaviour and business practice.

This study explains the international opportunity development of SMEs from emerging economies during institutional transition. This research enriches our understanding of how these firms adopt different approaches to developing international opportunities when they confront the turbulent institutional environment. We develop a phase-based framework for the evolution of transitional institution for SMEs’ internationalization and the SMEs’ internationalization process in that framework. By providing an empirical case study of a privately owned SME from China, the main finding is that SMEs from emerging economies become more entrepreneurial and proactive in developing the international opportunity during the institutional transition.

One of the overarching goals of many African countries since the past two decades has been the rapid move towards integration with the global economy. This is evident through far‐reaching macroeconomic and political reforms now taking place in these countries. However, despite the aggressive lurch towards market‐driven transformations, results on the ground have been less than satisfactory – arising largely from a myriad of implementation failures. It appears that while much emphasis is put on the potency of a free market‐driven transition, there is little understanding of how particular institutional arrangements shape and determine the success (or failure) of market/economic reforms. This paper adopts an institutional approach to analyse the transition challenges facing Africa. It concludes that countries in Africa are facing tumultuous problems in achieving sustainable growth, largely because the market‐driven transition programmes are rooted in economic orthodoxy that is anti‐institutional and, therefore, ill‐equipped to deliver desired results. Paradoxically, this appears to be the case with the UN Millennium Development Goals. Improved results in achieving the goals and, indeed, the broader market reform efforts are possible if planners and policy makers are able to root their planning processes within the contextually embedded institutional environment.

The purpose of this article is twofold. First, this study characterises the current state of the bio-packaging market's development. Second, it identifies key factors influencing and possible scenarios of the bio-packaging market transition to increase the market share of compostable packaging.

The results of 29 in-depth interviews (IDIs) with representatives of the key groups of bio-packaging supply chains' (SCs') stakeholders were the input for the consideration of the research problem.

The main economic, legal, social and technological enablers and barriers to the bio-packaging regime transition are recognised, and their impact at the market level is explained. The authors recognised the hybrid transition scenario towards an increase in the market share of compostable packaging related to the three traditional pathways of transformation, reconfiguration and technological substitution.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the socio-technical system theory by examining interdependencies between landscape (external environment), market regime (bio-packaging market) and niche innovations (compostable packaging) as well as system transition pathways. The findings and conclusions on bio-packaging market developments can be important lessons learnt to be applied in different countries due to the same current development stage of the compostable packaging lifecycle worldwide.

This is an exploratory paper of personal reflections on economic system issues, based on half a century of wide-ranging professional experiences, summarized in the section “Professional Background.”

The following broad generalizations are elaborated: (1) For a country’s sustained good economic performance, there is no alternative to a predominantly market-driven economy, supported by appropriate institutions. (2) In societies at all levels of development, it is essential to have mutually supporting cooperation between the private sector and the state (section “An Economic System with Universal Features?”). (3) The quarter-century transformation progress of the 29 former centrally planned economies of the USSR and Eastern Europe has been most uneven, as documented in the section “Relationship between Economic and Political System Transformation.” (4) Regarding China, it is NOT the country’s authoritarian political system but the skillful transformation of its economy into a market-driven one that has been principally responsible for the country’s impressive, long-term economic performance (section “China’s Economic Growth and Development Model”). The paper concludes by suggesting that the most fundamental determinants of a country’s long-term economic success are some combination of its geography, institutions, culture, and momentous historical events.