Polish Academy of Science

The purpose of this paper is to identify how the specific socio-economic-political conditions in Poland are related to the development of governance structures in business and, in particular, to the existence of capital groups. Defining and describing current forms of capital groups, the focus is on governance issues associated with national investment fund and other capital groups in Poland. Governance structures in western countries are used as a reference as they reflect historical patterns of their socio-economic environments. We argue that Polish version of capital groups are markedly different from their western counterparts and we discuss the differences. The paper concludes by proposing preliminary theses about trends and current dilemmas in governing capital groups in Poland