Organizational and ownership linkages of industrial and service enterprises in Poland, and their significance for regional development

The article presents a study concerning the development of the network of ownership linkages for the Polish enterprises operating in the industrial and services sector. The analysis covered 1,200 largest enterprises operating in Poland in 2005, and for the purpose of the study the comprehensive data concerning the shareholding structure of those business entities – including details such as ownership, property and geography – were collected. The research indicates that there is a concentration of economic control function in the higher levels of the settlement hierarchy, which results in maintaining or even deepening the monocentric structure of the entire system, thus strengthening the process of economic polarization. From the point of view of regional development viewed in the light of national context this is a negative process. However, a much more beneficial situation is developing in regard to choosing the location for the local branches of major enterprises, where it can be asserted that the arrangements in this respect are well harmonized with the existing demographic potential. This fact must be perceived as a factor alleviating the excess of economic control function that is evident in the capital city of Warsaw. Also, at the same time this is an element that enhances accessibility to the highly-specialized services, as well as organization of economic regional structures in accordance with the current administrative-territorial division