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1

Institutions and Modernity

100%

Morawski W.

Management and Business Administration. Central Europe

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2013

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vol. 21

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issue 3(122)

30-49

EN

Purpose: Modernity consists of many confl icting aspects: It brings many empty promises, yet has resulted in new institutions that create bridges between the values and interests of millions of people who seek freedom, prosperity, quality of life, strengthened democracy and social justice. In this paper I attempt to a gain and loss account against modernity, because institutional rules are not only conducive to cooperative interactions, but to hostile interactions as well. People are not always guided by moral commitment, but rather more often driven by cold calculation or coercion. Methodology: Modernity has at least three defi nitions. The fi rst defi nition is based on ideas that took over the imagination of the era. The second defi nition is based on an analysis of the behavior of people who respond to reason as well as emotion and believe that they act more rationally than their ancestors or the traditional “others”. The third defi nition is the one closest to my heart, consisting of the use of institutional categories. Institutions offer practical ways of connecting ideas and people. The challenge for them is the result of deepening local and national interdependencies, but increasingly often also regional (e.g. European) and global. Interdependencies are the result of the scientifi c and technological revolution, global markets, global governance mechanisms, the emergence of new social forces and cultural confl icts (against the background of reconciling identity and differences). Conclusions: The most important task is to identify the mechanisms of complex systems so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. Hence, the expectations toward institutions often exceed their abilities. Even though new institutions are being created and old ones are being fixed, we are witnessing and participating in, institutional paralysis and the decay (e.g. corruption). In this situation, it is imperative not only to improve control methods (e.g. legal), but also to resort to normative systems (values and identity) and knowledge (competence and skills). The source of this paralysis is often man himself, convinced of his own maturity and equipped with all sorts of rights, but manipulated on a scale not yet seen in the past. We are experiencing our own struggle as to what roles are closest to us, e.g. consumer, investor, or citizen? Research Implications: Modernity is an emblematic, but confusing term. Therefore, the most important task is to identify the activities of complex systems, so that people know how to act under conditions of uncertainty, risk and crisis. People – agencies must operate in structures that defi ne the boundaries of their actions. The main task of social sciences is to identify the conditions for the construction of successful confi gurations of agencies and structures. Originality: Sometimes the “old” is better than the “new”, but to adopt this as a principle of life would be a mistake. It is better to think that the “new” is a metamorphosis of the “old”, sometimes expected, sometimes not. Based on the example of capitalism – fi rst commercial capitalism, then industrial capitalism, and today fi nancial capitalism – I demonstrate how the mechanisms of institutional morphogenesis work, with emphasis on structured cooperation and organized confl ict.

2

Ograniczone przywództwo, czyli między racjonalnością a oczarowaniem – recenzja książki Ograniczone przywództwo Andrzeja K. Koźmińskiego

100%

Morawski W.

Management and Business Administration. Central Europe

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2014

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vol. 22

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issue 1

118-126

3

‘Path Dependence’: How Geopolitics and Culture Shape Divisions in Poland after the Fall of Communism

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Morawski W.

Polish Sociological Review

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2014

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vol. 188

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issue 4

435-460

EN

I examine two long-wave processes, geopolitics and culture, which I consider to be the main causes for the fall of communism and the beginning of the transformation. As a result of the geopolitical situation-in the shape of communism’s multidimensional defeat by capitalism-the national culture was able to help society use the new geopolitical context successfully. I distinguish two sequences of cause and effect: The geopolitical one, in which the sequence begins with geopolitics treated as an independent variable and an element shaping all systems, which are treated as dependent variables, i.e., communism loses to capitalism downfall of the state, for instance, the ‘Round Table’ downfall of the central, planned economy (economic reform) ‘S’ as organized rebellion theWestern model; and the cultural sequence, which begins from culture treated as an independent variable and a factor shaping all systems, which are treated as dependent variables, i.e., community based on national, religious, traditional, and solidarity values ‘us’ against ‘them’ industrial workers and the Church hierarchy supporting gradual change the ruined work environment and civil society Christian Europe and Poland’s mission in East Central Europe. I do not absolutize either geopolitical or cultural explanations (these are tools). I am closest to a configuration approach, in which attention is concentrated on all the factors that could contribute with ‘equal strength’ to forming a ’virtuous circle’. It is a relational approach, neither determinist nor constructivist (voluntarist). Structures and agencies possess autonomous powers of causal influence. There is a dual constituting of the agency/actor and the structure/system.

4

Researching Capitalism In Poland: Economic Interests As A Cultural Construction

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Morawski W.

Central European Management Journal

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2019

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vol. 27(1)

84-107

EN

Purpose: The three goals of the article are: first, to show some arguments surrounding the notion of capitalism in theoretical perspective, and also somewhat bashful connotations since it was intro-duced in Poland after the fall of communism; second, to present some historical facts about the rise of capitalism in Poland in comparative perspective, mostly European; third, to look for cultural categories necessary for analysing the peculiarities of Polish socio-economic development as the part of so-called „the second Europe”. Methodology: I go back to the history of European patterns of capitalist formation: Anglo-Saxon, French, German, Russian in order to show the Polish trajectory as strikingly different. Before enter-ing the Polish case, I present Mary Douglas and Aaron Widavsky’s proposal – how to analyze four cultures: individualist, egalitarian, hierarchical and fatalistic (authoritarian). Implications: The main finding is that economic interests are always socio-cultural constructions, hence all definitions of the real life decisions (on public vs private, risk, externalities etc.) that the people make, must frame them within working life of given culture as the combination of universa-lism and particularism (of above-mentioned four cultures).

5

The Bound Prometheus. Institutional Analyses of Polish Modernization

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Morawski W.

Polish Sociological Review

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2010

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vol. 170

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issue 2

191-218

EN

The author argues that it is worth applying the theoretical-methodological schemas of institutionalism to the analysis of modernization.He views institutions as bridges or in fact “engines” which are planes of inclusion of agencies (individuals, businesses, states etc.) in the structural processes of modernization, globalization, liberalization, democratization etc. He demonstrates how mechanisms differ depending on the type of institutionalism: rationalistic choice, dependence on structural heritage, sociological (functionalistic), political-legal, international. He makes references to Polish reality, past and present, in his analyses.

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Institutions and Modernity

Ograniczone przywództwo, czyli między racjonalnością a oczarowaniem – recenzja książki Ograniczone przywództwo Andrzeja K. Koźmińskiego

‘Path Dependence’: How Geopolitics and Culture Shape Divisions in Poland after the Fall of Communism

Researching Capitalism In Poland: Economic Interests As A Cultural Construction

The Bound Prometheus. Institutional Analyses of Polish Modernization