Purpose: This research aimed to identify the prevalence and particular characteristics of export-driven growth as opposed to those of the domestic market. It examined how the relative dynamics of export sales vs. domestic sales were affected by internationalization intensity (FSTS), age of the fi rm, early internationalization, size of the firm and industry technological level. Similarly, it examined the impact of sales growth and its direction
(domestic vs. export-driven) on company performance.

Methodology: The analysis was based on panel data from approximately 300 manufacturing firms in the Mazovia region of Poland that were engaged in sustained export operations during 2003 to 2010. Several hypotheses were tested regarding factors affecting the growth dynamics of regular exporters as well as their performance (productivity).

Findings: This research proved that only a small percentage (less than 10%) of fi rms reached the status of regular exporter. Although regular exporters engaged in international operations shortly after their foundation, they formed a distinct category of early internationalizing fi rms. For the management of young, ambitious ventures, achieving regularity in their initial export operations represented a major challenge.

Implications: Regularity of international sales is crucial for export performance, both at the enterprise and country levels. This implies that export promotion efforts should concentrate on growh-oriented firms, specifically to assist them in reaching regular exporter status shortly after initiating sales outside the domestic market.

Originality: The analysis of the internationalization process was expanded by adding the regularity dimension, which has been rarely addressed in the extant literature.

Purpose: The objective of the research was an assessment of the experiences of Polish owners of family companies in organizing family meetings as mechanisms of family governance as well as evaluating the usefulness of solutions developed in this sphere for both family and company.

Methodology: The character of the conducted research was qualitative. The main technique used to gather data involved interviews. A total of thirty nine respondents from twenty companies were questioned. Nineteen were representatives of the older generation while twenty represented the younger second generation of owners of family businesses.

Findings: Research results indicated the rather extensive use by the examined owner families of family meetings to discuss company matters. Depending on their needs, they developed various models ranging from the ad hoc bringing up of company matters to the transformation of such meetings into formal, family meetings of the management board organized in company offi ces. Regardless of organizational form, family meetings were an important forum for the exchange of information and views on the functioning of the company among family members. The experiences of the examined families of owners in building family governance systems, understood as a complex of structures and mechanisms making possible the maintenance of a balance between tensions stemming from economic and emotional ties among family members, both involved in the company and outside it, remain small.

Research limitations: The qualitative character of the research, including the size of the examined sample (twenty family companies represented by thirty nine representatives), means that the generalizations made for the purposes of this study refer only to the experiences and opinions of the interviewed respondents.

Originality: The research performed is the fi rst of its kind devoted to family meetings as a component of the system of family governance created in the family forum of owners of family companies. At present, questions of family governance subject to Polish conditions are not a popular research fi eld undertaken with respect to family companies. This is dictated by the current phase of development of most domestic family ventures, where no
signifi cant diversifi cation of stakeholders on the family level has as yet occurred. However, this should in no way suggest that Polish family businesses are not acquiring their fi rst experiences in the sphere of family governance that, in the future, may prove useful in the forming of more complex structures.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present the regulatory obligations imposed by the President of the Office of Electronic Communications (hereafter: President of UKE) on telecom enterprises with significant market power in the retail and wholesale telecommunications markets.

Methodology: The decisions addressed to TP Group entities were analyzed as well as the financial statements presenting the economic volume achieved for the period 2006–2013.

Findings: In the analyzed period for entities of the TP Group were applied a range of regulatory obligations, that should result in disabling the use of their monopoly position and transfer their position between telecommunications markets. Regulatory obligations imposed by the President of UKE on TP Group entities did not affect to a signifi cant extent the situation of the group. Fluctuations of analyzed fi nancial fi gures seem to be primarily
the result of internal management decisions rather than a comprehensive range of sector-specifi c regulation in telecommunications. These researches indicate the need for a deeper analysis of the perception of the effects of regulatory actions by stakeholders in the telecommunications sector.

Originality: The text provides an interdisciplinary approach to the issue of regulation of infrastructure markets.

Purpose: To present author’s concept of the evaluation of bargaining power in negotiations (in particular business ones).

Methodology: The paper is based on the review and comparative analysis of literature. A universal (general) concept of assessment is applied. The stress is put on presenting characteristic of bargaining power as well as the elaboration of its evaluation criteria and constructing set of indicators (measures) refl ecting those criteria.

Findings: it occurred that an attempt of creating such a concept is effi cient. It can constitute a useful tool of evaluating bargaining power in different types of (business) negotiations, within the process of their planning. Nevertheless presented concept will be a subject of subsequent author’s research, focusing on its improvement, mainly by searching more precise measures of bargaining power.

Originality: in general the suggestion for solving complex and diffi cult problem of evaluating bargaining power is presented, rarely investigated in the literature on negotiations. In particular the set of evaluating criteria and measures of bargaining power is pointed out.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to answer the questions (1) whether the reforms of the regulations in the banking sector were effective and (2) which mechanisms discipline the behavior of banks. Moreover, we also raise a question how the behavior of banks depends on the institutional environment.

Methodology: To achieve the objectives, the article uses probit analysis on panel data covering the years: 1995–2006 for the entire period, and for years: 1999–2004 and 2004–2006 for 350 banks from OECD countries.

Findings: The quantitative results clearly argue for banking regulation, rather than leaving the supervision of the banking sector market discipline. However, the survey results also show that the behavior of banks depends largely on the institutional environment. Therefore, we questioned whether the currently proposed regulatory reforms that are homogeneous in nature will be effective in disciplining banks.

Practical implications: Among many reforms that are proposed the most important concerns are ones on banking regulation. Some believe that regulation of the banking sector should not be such useful, others believe that regulations are needed, which showed the fi nancial crisis in 2007–2011.

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to indicate and characterize the stakeholder of the State Owned Company (SOC).

Methodology: All fi ndings are based on classic functional research and consists of regulation analysis and large sample analysis conducted among SOCs’ management and supervisory boards’ members and offi cials of Polish Ministry of Treasury that supervise SOCs. The research sample contains all the SOCs in which the shareholder’s rights are performed by the Minister of Treasury and all the ministry offi cials that supervise these companies.

Findings: The stakeholders of the SOCs are members of their management and supervisory boards and their employees. Partially (from some perspective), the minister, vice ministers of treasury and the ministry officials can be also regarded as the stakeholders. The shareholder, i.e. the treasury may not be regarded as the independent (autonomous) stakeholder, since it is represented by the minister who is attended by the ministry officials.

Implications: Generally, the article’s conclusions may relate not only to the Polish SOCs but to relevant companies in other countries. The problems of SOCs’ stakeholders and the infl uence of political and administrative factors on SOCs may constitute important fi eld of the corporate governance research.

Value: This research is unique due to the fact that it contains all the Polish SOCs. Their interdisciplinary character provides to indicate practical implications of the regulation in force. The high rate of return achieved in the research enables to conduct reliable reasoning.

Objective: This paper describes the level of knowledge of the areas in project management. The aim of this article is to diagnose the fi rst level of project management maturity in four surveyed companies. A common language is the fi rst of the fi ve levels of project management maturity.

Methodology: Qualitative research on target sample has been carried out using a questionnaire.

Test results: The study presents a fragment of the results of research on the project management maturity in organizations in the process of product innovation. Project knowledge is a resource for knowledge about methods and techniques related to the coordination of project activities and project experience gained from the implementation
of previous and earlier projects.

Conclusion: Proper knowledge management during the project can undoubtedly bring many benefi ts as: developing and improving their own solutions, eliminating duplication of work, saving time, learning from mistakes and the mistakes of others, the use of best practices.

Originality: Knowledge of project areas by the team indicates the level of project management maturity in the creation of product innovation.

Purpose: The study concentrated on the process of evaluation of public programs currently implemented with the support of European Union funds in Poland. The aim was to show how the evaluation practice was adopted in the regional administration within programming and implementation of Regional Operational Programs 2007–2013 (ROP). The author analysed what types of decisions are primarily supported by evaluation and what
functions evaluation serves.

Methodology: The quantitative analysis was based on data drawn from documentation of the full population of ROP evaluations completed in 2007 to 2012, which was acquired from 16 ROP evaluation units.

Findings: The practice of evaluation was well adopted in regional administration and has grown rapidly in recent years. 236 studies, costing more than 16 million PLN, were completed by the end of 2012. However, most studies were of limited value as they concentrated on the implementation process, not on the effects and justification of intervention.

Implications: This study focused on quantitative aspects of the knowledge production process (evaluation reports). It omitted the question of actual evaluation use, which together with evaluation process quality and development of evaluation culture should be a subject of further investigation.

Originality: This study was the fi rst review of ROP evaluations in Poland. It went far beyond the scope of data collected previously by the Ministry of Regional Development and proposed novel categorizations of evaluation subjects that may be useful for other than ROP evaluations.