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Discusses Polish political‐economic developments during the first decade of transformation, aiming to identify the key features likely to shape the business climate in the new millennium. The paper has three parts: first, critical aspects of the Polish political scene are described and an attempt is made to map out likely futures and downside risks, emphasising business and economic connections; this is followed by a similarly structured economics section where description of recent performance and policy is followed by an outline of likely developments and risks; a third section summarises progress in FDI, privatisation and in shaping Polish capitalism, and again looks ahead to possible futures. The mainstream expectation is of continuing opening up of good business opportunities in a basically stable political environment but any serious downturn in the international economy will inevitably sharpen internal tensions and threaten to blow off course what has been a broadly successful system transformation.

collective action in case of a collective labour conflict. Poland ratified the Charter in 1997, that is seventeen years after the world‐famous Polish Independent and Self‐Governing Trade Union Solidarity had been established. In order to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Union, I shall present a fragment of a monograph on the European Social Charter and, more specifically, on the right of workers to organise and participate in strikes. By means of the aforementioned regulation, both parties of collective employment relationships (workers and employers) were granted the right to take collective action

Poles do much of their shopping outdoors. In any city with urban bus or tram service, and in many towns without, there are kiosks on important street corners that sell bus or tram tickets, magazines and newspapers, basic stationery items, cigarettes and candy, bottled water and soft drinks, and an amazing number of other small items. More important than the kiosks are the targowiska or “free and open markets” where Poles can buy clothing, stationery, food, small electronics, cosmetics, and a large variety of other goods. The targowiska are the descendents of the weekly market days that occurred in almost every Polish town and village up to World War II. These free and open markets appeared quickly with the liberalisation of the economy in the late 1980s, popping up at traditional market places and on other open spaces convenient for shoppers. While these markets appear to be unorganised and informal, in the past fifteen or twenty years their operations have become regulated and more formal. While these markets are less informal than they may first appear, they do still perform many of the functions of informal markets. These markets also have become an important source of revenue for local governments.

Analyses factors determining the outflows from unemployment to employment across regions in Poland over the years 1992‐98, employing the concept of the augmented matching function. Explores also the influence of the economic growth and the employment structure of the regional labour markets in Poland. Concludes that the values of outflows from unemployment to employment are closely and positively related to the number of unemployed and the number of vacancies, as well as to the economic growth rate; and that the employment structure of regional labour markets has a strong impact on outflows from unemployment to employment. The more a regional employment structure resembles the structure in European G7 countries, the higher the outflows from unemployment to employment.

The paper aims to analyze actual issues of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in monofunctional towns in Russia, Slovakia and Poland. The process of social investment restructuring is obviously under way in these countries. However, there can be identified a few examples where the dominant employer with the long tradition (from the soviet period, even longer) has initiated and directly influenced by the social policy the local and regional development. The paper analyzes their development during the past decades, with the special emphasis on social issues. It identifies its strengths and weaknesses and defines future research areas.

The first part of the paper defines the CSR with focus on the social sphere and relationships between local dominant employer, local government and community. Refer to the theory, the paper adopts a case study methodology to explore the specifics of CSR with a focus on monotowns, especially the role of local dominant employer and its relationship with local government and community in three selected post-communist nations – Russia, Slovakia and Poland. The research uses also the secondary data (the strategic documents, statistical data) and own observation during the study visits to the selected cities. The authors analyze the town’s development during the past decades, with the special emphasis on the social issues.

It is shown that maintenance and development of essential living conditions in many monofunctional towns depends upon the direct participation of large dominating companies. The paper argues that there is a principal difference between the current social policy conducted by these dominant local employers and the policy that was conducted in the past. What is more, most of the engagement of large in the social affairs in monotowns refers to the CSR concept. The paper summarizes the common features and differences in functioning monotowns in selected states, from the perspective of social responsible behaviors of dominant companies, suggests the practical implications and identifies future research areas.

The paper maps the specific kind of social responsibility interconnected with the issue of local and regional development – monotowns in Russia, Poland and Slovakia – in the countries with common political and social history. It brings in the form of case studies the detailed overview of the selected examples from Russia, Ukraine and Poland dealing with the CSR. Based on the collected data, it summarizes the advantages and disadvantage of these towns and opens the new research areas.