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This paper compares formal and informal modes of cooperation between SMEs in the post‐socialist transitional economy of Poland. It describes how small firms in a university environment utilise their networks of social relations to cope with some of the problems typical for SMEs in a post‐socialist transitional economy. Moreover, the paper gives a brief account of how successful similar firms are supported by the newly developing business support infrastructure. The data for this paper derive from a larger PhD project on networking in a transitional economy and are based on semi‐structured interviews with entrepreneurs and representatives of organisations who were selected using the snowballing method. The paper looks at two groups of firms that were established by academics from technical universities in two western Polish regions. It compares these structures with formal policy initiatives in the two regions, which aim to support similar firms. The evidence shows how personal contacts remained both between the technical universities and the firms as well as between the individual firms. The use of these interpersonal relations can lead to an effective means of knowledge transfer between universities and the business sphere and can also serve as problem‐solving mechanisms for the small business. The organisation of the business support infrastructure, on the other hand, seem to be rather unsuccessful in addressing the problems of such university spin‐offs. The problems of acceptance and credibility that these bodies encounter are mainly rooted in the reluctance of private entrepreneurs to get involved with public or quasi‐public institutions, which in turn is a result of socialist legacies.

Attempts to “Westernize” post‐socialist economies of Eastern Europe resulted in little or no progress. This paper aims to incorporate the resource‐based view (RBV) paradigm to shed light on the present difficulties and challenges. A shortage of resources, many of which are taken for granted in the West, is identified as a reason why some “Western‐style” approaches did not work.

Reviews of literature in entrepreneurial orientation and RBV serve as a foundation of the development of conceptual arguments. The paper presents a framework elaborating on entrepreneurial development by focusing on the national resource base called enabling resources.

Richardian, functional‐regulatory, and tacit culturally based resources are credited with building national entrepreneurial activity and developing a unique national competency.

The paper does not include empirical validation of its argument. Further empirical research should be done in different cultural contexts.

The paper informs policymakers and entrepreneurs alike towards a monumental task of rebuilding these new democracies. Developed framework provides a way of building resources necessary for sustained entrepreneurial growth unique to each post‐socialist economy.

By focusing on the unique national resource base, the economic development of post‐socialist economies of Eastern Europe may be improved and accelerated. This paper emphasizes the need to consider and examine available resources in the transformation and development of enterprising communities.

The paper aims to present a pedagogical model tailored to the development of key competences in the urban planning profession in post-socialist transitional countries that is based on the creation of an integrated platform for dialogue and the development of professional competences as part of the process, whereby students produce their final projects.

The pedagogical model is based on the principles of education for sustainable development and focuses on the establishment of a repeatable platform for dialogue between students and mentors, members of the mentoring team, the local community, external members of the consulting team of experts and foreign master’s degree programmes, in the process of producing students’ projects. The proposed method addresses several dimensions, including: the education of students, teachers, professionals and local experts, the establishment of a network for cooperation and collaboration and the delivery of practical and usable results.

The paper provides a comparative overview of the pedagogical model’s application in producing the final master’s degree projects of three generations of students, as well as its alignment with the needs of re-defining the role and reach of the profession of urban planner in an environment of post-socialist transition. The model was improved, enhanced and optimised through this process and then corroborated with its practical implementation.

The innovative pedagogical model comprises an instrument to enhance the professional capacities of all participants in the production of final master’s projects: academics, practitioners and future professionals/students, through discussions of topical issues, innovative modes of work and new professional responses grounded in the local context and tested by a broad range of stakeholders. It is of particular importance for countries in transition experiencing a shift in the paradigm of professional action, especially as the proposed pedagogical model establishes a problem-solving platform that surpasses academia.

Low‐income transitional countries in the region of the Caucasus and Central Asia lack the existence of a solid assessment of public perceptions regarding the causes of poverty during transition. The purpose of this paper is to fill that gap in the existing literature.

This paper uses the secondary analysis of a recent cross‐sectional multinational survey to shed light on public beliefs of the causes of poverty in seven countries of the region – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In addition, Russia and Ukraine are used as a comparison point. The theoretical framework for this study is that the subjective beliefs regarding the explanations of poverty can be classified into three broad groups: individualistic, fatalistic, and structural. Hence, regression coefficients and marginal effects of the multinomial logit regression model (MNLM) are estimated to associate the set of various individual, households, and community characteristics selected in the conceptual framework with the likelihood of choosing one of the three afore‐mentioned explanations of poverty.

The results of cross‐tabulation reveal that in a majority of the countries studied, the predominant explanation for poverty is structural, with the exception of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where predominant explanations are, respectively, fatalistic and individualistic. The results of MNLM show that most individual, household, and community characteristics possess the expected direction and are in line with previous findings. However, some of the characteristics have a similar significant effect across several countries, while other characteristics are significant for a single country only.

These findings demonstrate that despite the dominant post‐socialist ideology which favors individualistic and fatalistic explanations of poverty based on the economic rationality of market capitalism, the efforts of the elites in promoting and imposing these ideologies has not been fully successful. Nevertheless, no single unified model of the determinants of beliefs regarding the causes of poverty in the countries of the region is observed.

This is one of the very few papers aimed at assessing public perceptions regarding the causes of poverty in transitional countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

To address the research gap on East German women managers and to examine some of the experiences of post‐socialist East German women who entered management positions during 1990s. The discussion focuses on the nature of women's commitment to career and organisation.

The study presented adopts a methodology based on a qualitative approach, the grounded theory approach as developed by Glaser. One‐to‐one, semi‐structured interviews were carried out in 2000 with 24 East German women managers and five human resource managers in eight companies located in Eastern Germany, headquartered in Western Germany.

The case of post‐socialist East German women managers shows that gender can in fact become secondary criterion in employing women managers. It was revealed that opportunities for advancement were greater for East German female managers than West German managers due to the existence of childcare and women's programmes. The support structures, however, are currently being dismantled and women's growth and development in management levels is uncertain. The data show that women managers have coped with transition very effectively and are highly committed to their organisation and their career. However, their high commitment needs to be understood in relative terms as it is strongly context‐related.

Considering the qualitative nature of this study research results should not be generalised, rather they serve as a base for future research.

Particularly, the identification of personnel strategies employed towards post‐socialist women managers and an insight into East German women's commitment could benefit HR practitioners.

This paper contributes to the limited literature on women in management Hungary as well as literature on women in post‐socialism.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that informal practices and institutions of post-Soviet countries differ from informality in other post-socialist regions and, therefore, proposes categorizing it as “post-Soviet informality” – a composite definition that extends beyond the concept of “informal economy” and encompasses, along with economic activities, social and political spheres.

The arguments of the paper are based on a comprehensive analysis of secondary sources.

This paper shows that, owing to the effects of antecedent regime’s legacies and the problems of post-communist transition, for the proper analysis of informality in post-Soviet countries it needs to be based on an own concept.

This study, in contrast to the existing literature on informality in post-communist spaces, specifically focuses on the informal sphere of post-Soviet countries, suggesting that the informal institutions and practices thriving across the vast post-Soviet space not only differ from the informal spheres elsewhere in the world, but also from informality in other post-communist regions.

The purpose of this paper is to review the complexity of post‐Communist transition with regard to the processes of creating a legal and institutional environment, which will predispose social actors to cooperate to solve social problems and neutralize disparities. The paper also seeks to consider the shift from social destruction (everyone fighting with one an other) to social collaboration.

The focus of the paper is on the scope of the simultaneously functioning political, social and moral extremes. They are seen as the key attributes of chaotic social transition and as material for creating cooperative links.

Political and social transformation running simultaneously, and followed by legal and administrative modernization, provoked formerly unknown social conflicts in the transitional society. The case of Lithuania shows that the old methods for dealing with new conflicts were not suitable. Society became fragmented. Social costs of disintegration were high but not equal, when compared internationally. Interdependence between functionality, innovative and cultural potential of the state, and its capability to regulate conflicts and social controversies had been brought into political debates and public discussions after transition had been in progress for several years. This was a signal that political parties and the most influential social players became concerned about social outcomes of the reforms. Developing a new legal and institutional environment, empowering cooperation and conflict management in social interactions, is perceived as an indicator of the progress of the continuing transition.

Because of its nature and size, the research does not develop insights into the processes which were in some sense dependent on, and simultaneously became incentives for, the culture of cooperation in society; for example, dynamics of cooperation and competition among authorities and citizens, business and politics.

Though great interest is shown in transitional processes in social and humanitarian studies, the rise of conflicts in society as well as the limitations of constructive ways of dealing with such conflicts are not yet the focus of social investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on traditionally important determinants (demographics, peoples’ perceptions, and environmental characteristics) of entrepreneurial engagement in the post-socialist region of the European Union (EU).

A rich data set obtained from the Flash Eurobarometer Survey on Entrepreneurship 2007 is used, while a binomial probit regression model is employed.

Gender, mother's occupation, unemployment, and economic growth are reported as significant determinants of entrepreneurship. The econometric results also suggest that lack of financial resources, individual's risk aversion, a large number of start-up procedures, and increased tax rates are all positively, rather than negatively related to entrepreneurial engagement.

It is suggested that the recent structural changes that have occurred in the examined region, as well as the transition process under which the examined countries operate have influenced the attitude of individuals towards entrepreneurial engagement.

The study provides useful information in relation to the attitude of a post-socialist society towards structural issues which have possibly impeded its engagement to entrepreneurship. Both the geographic area (post-socialist European countries) and the time the data were collected (i.e. three years after the examined countries’ accession to the EU) can be perceived as factors of great interest for both policy makers and entrepreneurs.

Poland’s political and economic transformation after 1989 brought the logic of the neoliberal market into the educational system. These changes, however, were far from the real liberal free market and instead relied on bureaucratic and technocratic local-level apparatus as well as supranational supports (the EU). Moreover, instead of enhancing post-socialist education to bring them up to the level of the core territories, this process pushed education out to the (semi?)periphery. The purpose of this paper is to present selected examples of alternative non-mainstream models of education.

Elements analyzed include: non/academic discourses, with particular emphasis on academic texts, media material and public debates concerning the topic in question.

Two related fields and levels ought to be distinguished: the descriptive level, focused on presenting non-mainstream educational institutions and initiatives, within the socioeconomic context of Poland’s post-socialist transformation; the normative level, with recommendations for policymakers, NGOs and educational activists.

Appreciation of systems parallel and alternative to the neoliberal and technocratic mainstream education system in Poland, with a view to encouraging both policymakers to recognise and develop such initiatives, and members of Polish civil society to create and participate in such forms of education.

Most scholars focus on mainstream education, with a number of exceptions, largely those engaged in the parallel models. This neoliberal model of education is accepted or critically examined, but its technocratic base is not recognised. This text is therefore ground-breaking in that it describes the real mechanisms of the Polish educational system in transition and provides a normative account and recommendations.

Presents a unique view of informality within the government of Tatarstan which challenges the notion that these forms can be dismissed as simply corruption. Focuses on interviews with investors and businessmen, showing how informality can be an important factor in the reproduction of elite classes. Limits the article to the unique dynamics of the transition from command economy to free market economy but provides resonance with the experiences of those who have worked in many third‐world societies.