Purpose: The present study investigates the survival and success of new organizations in the light of complex network theory.

Methodology: The empirical data was collected using the survey method from the technology park companies are analyzed with social network analysis. Two main methods were used in this study: descriptive statistics and social network analysis.

Findings: The findings indicate that new nodes appearing because of splitting up of bigger nodes from present or other related networks have a higher degree of centrality. In practice, this means that companies founded by former members of large-scale companies from these networks are more successful due to the ease in providing the flow of resources and information through previous links. This suggests that the imprint effect can be observed in the appearance, lifecycle, and performance of new nodes in complex networks.

Originality: The literature lacks studies on new organizations’ lifecycle in complex networks despite the existence of studies about new organizations in organizational networks. This study examines the appearance, success, and survival of new organizations in networks by complex network approaches such as dynamism, dissipative structures, and uncertainties.

The main point of this article is comparison of two types of leadership: heroic, individualistic, formal, and dispersed, networked, spontaneous. The first is presented in the famous novel by Antoine de Saint Exupery The night flight the second is depicted in Plague by Albert Camus. Formal leadership is experiencing nowadays visible deficit of power. Even the top political leaders of the world, CEOs of global corporations and media moguls are not as powerful as the used to be and not as powerful as they seem. Many of them openly admit that they are simply not able to fulfill their promises and to follow their agendas. This is particularly visible in the times of plague. When degenerated “heroic” traditional power gradually evaporate new networks replace it spontaneously. People who do not seek rewards take over burden of responsibilities in the critical fight against plague. To what extent they will be able to replace the leftovers of traditional leadership?

Purpose: The main aim of the study is the analysis of the awareness of competency needs in businesses in relation to the development of Industry 4.0 and the possibility of meeting those needs within business cooperation networks.

Methodology: We formed a model of competency needs for companies operating as part of Industry 4.0 in Poland, considering the needs of managers and other staff members. The model was then employed in empirical studies. The pilot empirical study was conducted using two methods: a quantitative CAWI method, which covered 81 companies from the metal processing and machine industry in Podlaskie Voivodship, and a qualitative IDI on a sample of 25 organizations.

Findings: Manufacturing companies are not fully aware of the competency needs related to Industry 4.0, covered by the established model. Moreover, we found that the most strongly felt competency needs – both by managers and other employees – may not be met within the business cooperation network. In order to satisfy these needs, partners must be found outside the studied network. The business cooperation network that we studied may only satisfy the less noticeable competency needs.

Implications: The developed competency model should be studied and further verified, including testing with a larger sample of companies, specifying the behavioral competency gaps related to Industry 4.0, their filling in using formal education systems, lifelong education, internships, and apprenticeships. The need for further research is dictated by the intensity of processes occurring within the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Value: The pilot nature of the study and its limited sample do not undermine its contribution to the body of knowledge as it confirms that the competencies of managers and other staff members are one of the key determinants of successful implementation of the Industry 4.0 concept in Poland.

Purpose: Many empirical and review studies have been performed in the management and organization literature from the structural social capital perspective. Since these studies focus on different topics periodically, we aimed to make a bibliometric analysis of the structural social capital literature that allows a regular, systematic, and quantitative evaluation of published articles in management and organization science to identify the underlying structure in this research area and to identify the main research themes of the scholarship.

Methodology: The bibliographic matching technique was used for checking international databases to explore the main concepts and themes of the management and organization literature and to identify main themes in the research area. Therefore, this article offers a bibliometric analysis of the literature that allows for a regular, systematic, and quantitative evaluation of published articles to identify their underlying structure and to identify the main research themes in the scholarship. Research data were analyzed using the text mining method, which is a sub-branch of the data mining method and one of the most critical ways to analyze and process unstructured data.

Findings: Structural social capital studies were examined in management and organization science databases in three periods forming four years. Although there are no completely different emerging themes, we noticed periodic differences and change in priority rankings. Moreover, we found that the subjects repeat every period with few new concepts.

Implications: This research shows the main themes in the management and organization literature, where structural social capital elements are examined together, and covers all areas of management, organization and business science. Considering the main topics of the three periods of this research, there are similarities, namely the words that rank among the top in each period are “innovation,” “entrepreneurship,” “knowledge management,” “performance,” “leadership,” “technology,” and “human resources” and these themes are the most prominent.

Originality/Value: This research presents an overview of all past studies that focus on the structural social capital present in social interactions. Since structural social capital influences management and organization literature, it is considered a valuable study and a guide for future research.

Purpose: Although social capital and positive reputation in organizations are essential for career success, there is a limited perspective in the literature on the political characteristics (motivation and ability) that enable one to acquire and develop the two elements. This study seeks to investigate the sequential role of political skill and network resources as serial mediators of the political will–personal reputation relationship.

Methodology: In total, what provided data for the study were 457 sales executives from 13 different sectors in the cities of İstanbul, Kocaeli, and Bursa, which is an economically leading region of western Turkey. Executives rated their political will, political skill network resources, and personal reputation. Based on the complementary theories of political influence, social network, and signaling, we analyzed the relationships between constructs with structural equation modeling.

Findings: Political skill mediated the relationship between political will and network resources,
network resources mediated the relationship between political skill and personal reputation, while political skill and network resources sequentially mediated the relationship between political will and personal reputation.

Implications: The data were collected from a single source.

Practical Implications: Political will, political skill training, and social networks may help individuals manage their personal reputation at work, thus benefiting their careers.

Originality/Value: This is one of the first studies to sequentially investigate how individuals’ characteristics (motivation and ability) develop their social network and personal reputation at work. Moreover, theories of political influence, social capital, and signaling were jointly used for the first time ever.

Purpose: The paper explores the online dialog of firms and consumers through corporate websites and social networks. The objective is to investigate the state of this dialog, its mechanisms, and outcomes in four export-oriented manufacturing companies that represent a wide spectrum of industries, including FMCG and durable goods, low-priced and expensive products, purchased with high and low involvement.

Methodology: A multiple-case study was used as the research method, with data sourced from in-depth interviews, observations, and published documents.

Findings: The findings show all managers agree that dialog with consumers is useful, they allocate resources to support it, but its intensity is underwhelming. Dialog effects were reported as positive but only as anecdotal evidence without validation in reliable data, which underscores measuring difficulties. It seems that dialog is the easiest to implement in and brings the most substantial benefits for high-involvement products but, even there, the feedback from consumers is not effectively used for developing product innovations. The major obstacle that restricts rich dialog is not technology but the intensity, speed, and quality of personal contact between employees and consumers.

Originality: The empirical material presented here offers original insights that foster a better understanding of online dialog between consumers and manufacturing companies.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of an advanced form of internationalization: foreign direct investment (FDI) in a distant location. We label this transaction “adventurous FDI”, and explain how this new concept is related to, yet distinct from, other widely studied theories: born global companies, the LLL model, and the Uppsala model. We propose a theoretical typology of adventurous FDI based on two critical factors for risk­taking: distance and embeddedness.

Methodology: We present a theoretical proposal of a typology of AFDIs. To support our proposal, we illustrate the typology with examples from a longitudinal study of foreign direct investments undertaken in the years 2007-2009 by Polish frms. Selection of the time period for this study is justifed by the fact that the number of FDI transactions and AFDIs has almost doubled in the observed time period. We apply methods of social network analysis to identify embeddedness of FDIs and use geographic distance measures to classify transactions on a distance scale.

Originality: Current theories of foreign direct investment (FDI) focus broadly on either gradual learning or instant globalization. We identify a new category which we term “adventurous FDI”. The distinctive features of adventurous FDI includes the exploration of many unknowns related to distant locations and the use of advanced internationalization forms. We propose that embeddedness in country networks is instrumental to adventurous FDI, as the rapid learning inherent in such network arrangements enables frms to overcome the ambiguity associated with vast geographic, psychic, and cultural distance.

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse selected aspects of the marketing strategy of the frst and biggest network of self-service shops with organic products in Poland – Organic Farma Zdrowia.

Methodology: The adopted methodology involves a qualitative approach. The case study is based on an analysis of company documents and marketing communication, especially that offered on its website and in its social media channels.

Findings: The company specializes in distribution of organic products in Poland. It has gone through organic growth, acquisitions, attracting a Dutch investment fund, and entering the NewConnect stock exchange. It operates based on the model of multichannel distribution, combining physical and online retailing. The assortment consists of 4,000 products, including organic food, cosmetics, and cleaning aids. The company has managed to create 3 own label product lines. The online retailer belonging to the company (organic24.pl) is organized in a professional way, although some improvements are possible. In 2015, the company engaged in ambitious marketing projects.

Practical implications: The fndings may be useful for the Organic Farma Zdrowia company as certain modifcations in its marketing communication are recommended. Other companies operating in the sector may also beneft from the analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the business in question. Furthermore, our case study may offer a framework of reference for researchers interested in this area.

Originality: This is the frst study to examine the strategy and marketing activities of Organic Farma Zdrowia, a major player in the sector of organic food distribution in Poland.

Purpose: Despite the importance of innovation, the full innovation potential of companies operating in the industrial sector of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) seems not to have been unlocked yet. Thus, the primary purpose of the study was to explore the key elements of company innovation policies applied on the way to successful innovation.

Methodology: The article presents results of an empirical quantitative analysis. The data has been collected through an anonymous online and postal survey. The analysis focuses on 345 companies active on foreign markets and involves a Mann-Whitney U test and a regression analysis.

Findings: The conducted analysis points to the importance of the degree of interorganizational network embeddedness for the performance of companies active on foreign markets. It shows that the higher the degree of the overall network embeddedness (measured with adaptations, trust and mutuality), the higher the company’s perceived performance relative to its competitors.

Research limitations: The research was burdened with such limitations as respondents experiencing time pressure and the use of only one source of information (the interviewees).

Originality: Despite much general evidence, the study attempts to complement the rare qualitative studies on innovation in CEE. It was carried out as a response to the lack of an in-depth study covering such recurrent challenges in the feld of company innovation policies as disruption, portfolio balancing, integration, intangibilities’ management, and play.

Purpose: This article provides an understanding of international retailers’ successes and failures when expanding in the Polish market. Accordingly, the objectives of this article were to define and identify what are the critical factors of success and failures of international retailers’ strategies while expanding in the Polish market according to the retailers themselves.

Methodology: Adopting an interpretative research approach, this article elaborates a multiple explanatory case study design to discover how existing theory on internationalization compared to how internationalization is experienced and conceptualized by practitioners in their natural contexts.

Findings: Twenty cases were studied among which were found four successful retailers and two who had failed. Coding of categories highlighted five critical success factors and five critical failure factors. Pricing strategy, necessity of adapting operations to local market, learning by doing, e-commerce and early entry timing appeared as factors of success or at least as “facilitating factors.” Choosing the inappropriate entry method, underestimating competition, developing the retail network and retail environment at a slow pace and not giving enough means of abnegation led to failures in Poland.

Originality: This article contributes to filling two main gaps identified in the literature review. Many different theoretical approaches exist but no conclusive framework has emerged. Besides, most concepts were developed and tested on western European countries and nothing proved adequate to the specific retail landscape of eastern Europeans countries such as Poland.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of market structure and market conduct characteristics (such as market concentration, presence of networks operated by global corporations, presence of vertically integrated companies, presence of hypermarket gasoline stations and consumption level) on price-cost margin levels, based on an example of the European Union retail gasoline market.

Methodology: The research applied regression analysis on a panel data set comprising of average monthly price-cost margins for 2012 to 2015, based on the data published in the European Commission Oil Bulletin, and on a set of variables characterizing market structure and market conduct of 24 European Union member state countries.

Findings: The results showed that in the case of retail gasoline markets, higher industrial concentration yields higher price-cost margins with a statistically significant influence of other market structure and conduct factors.

Purpose: The article is devoted to critical refl ection on the commonly used value chain model taking the perspective of contemporary role of client and technological advancement in multifaceted organizational development and management. It attempts to outline and thoroughly describe the new perspective of value creation and value management taking into account digital technologies and social media platforms.

Methodology: Deductive approach have been implemented, secondary data and sources have been used. Finally, the model of Value chain 2.0 was presented, conceptualized and described from both theoretical and practical sides.

Design: The fi rst part of the article is focused on the explanation of present potential of client for any enterprise. The second part attempts to explain the role of virtualization processes, exemplifi ed by social media, semantic web approach or virtual organization in the shift of value creation. Finally, the concept of value chain 2.0 is proposed and discussed.

Findings: There is a rapid transformation of value creation where linearity, control and inter organizational resources are gradually being replaced by network value creation where clients’ activities play pivotal role in organization performance and where value is defi ned in much broader way.

Practical implications: The conclusions have profound meaning for companies and organizations striving for engagement of clients, partners and employees in value creation processes. The paper presents both theoretical foundations along with practical implications for value co-creation.

Originality: The thorough and detailed analysis and interpretation of multifaceted shift and transformation of value creation and value management is presented. The article describes the ways the social media, digital technologies and contemporary marketing influence the way organization.

in terms of the benefi ts for the cluster members. The paper examines which mechanisms within the clustersb promote knowledge creation between companies and other institutions.
Methodology: The literature review is based on databases of books and scientifi c articles, such as EBSCO, Elsevier, JSTOR, Springer, and the Oxford Library and Kingston University London Library. The analysis of the literature is focused around the concepts of business clusters, knowledge management in organizations, knowledge management in clusters.

Findings: The literature presented in this paper shows that network forms of organization such as clusters are conducive to inter-fi rm knowledge and skill development. Clusters as a type of network turn out to be a highly structured model of knowledge development, transfer and diffusion, produced by the interaction of social and economic relations within cluster institutions.

Research implications: The article constitutes a combination of two theoretical aspects – knowledge management and business clusters. The theoretical conclusions of the literature review, mostly foreign literature, provide a basis for research in that area.

Practical implications: In the Polish literature on the subject the aspect of knowledge management in business clusters has not yet been discussed. The conclusions of the presented literature analysis provide a basis for research and the development of practical recommendations for cluster managers. Knowledge-based clusters can serve as an example for developing clusters in the world. They are often clustered around research centers,
making it possible to improve the exchange of knowledge between the cluster members and also providing the opportunity to better connect the world of science and business.

Originality: The author has presented a unique mix of theory, knowledge management and business clusters and has demonstrated that one of the benefi ts of business clusters is their ability to generate knowledge by combining existing information and data from internal databases of businesses within clusters with the infl ux of new information.

Formal contacts between the employees of the cooperating institutions provide general knowledge and
best practices based on collective knowledge. While informal contacts are important channels for the transfer of
tacit knowledge, the so-called operational know-how

Purpose: This text is a review of the results of a research project on Polish entrepreneurs and Polish enterprises in Silicon Valley, conducted by the author in Silicon Valley in The United States in the years 2007–2012.

Methodology: 81 participants took part in the research (members of 13 different companies and several government and third sector organizations). Among the organizations represented in the project there were companies established in the Valley by Poles, Polish companies present in the Valley, as well as institutions that are active in promotion and support of Polish business presence in the United States, especially in Silicon Valley.

Findings: The research indicates that there are three main areas for improvement in Poland, if it is to be home to companies characterized by a potential for rapid growth (as the ones that Silicon Valley is famous for). The first one concerns cultural aspects associated with low tolerance of risk and social censure of those who fail in business. The second includes financing, in particular limited access to venture capital and business angels networks. The third one refers to business education of entrepreneurs, for whom gaining practical experiences in world-class centers of entrepreneurship, such as Silicon Valley, is of utmost importance.

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to present a model of the network of relationships of an enterprise with entities around it in the virtual environment, with particular consideration of internet communities against the background of its earlier forms, along with a presentation of the crucial factors, which have influenced its shape. An additional aim is to identify the key factors that determine the relationships of the network.

Approach: The article is theoretical. The basis for discussion are literature studies in economics and management.

Findings: The results of the discussion indicate the manner in which new information communication technologies change the form and nature of relationships between companies and their external environment. The author puts forward a proposal concerning the development possibilities of these mutual relationships in two opposing directions, i.e. cooperation and destruction.

Originality: A model of business relationships in the virtual environment is presented. The author also suggests the key internal and external factors determining the form of the mutual relationships in the virtual environment

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to analyze some of the innovation drivers in Poland in comparison to the selected developed and developing countries, to present the general determinants and features of the “open innovation” concept, and finally to determine the most important incentives of the open knowledge ecosystem creation process in Poland.

Methodology: The research approach and methodology are based on the assumption that in the contemporary world economy innovativeness and competitiveness depend not only on traditional modes of technology transfer (e.g. foreign direct investment, license or arm’s length agreements), but also on knowledge absorption capabilities.

Findings: The transnational corporations have already perceived the knowledge creation potential of Internetbased digital communities, therefore they are strongly interested in the implementation of the “open innovation” concept in their business models. Based on completed survey results and a selected data comparative analysis one can conclude that the innovativeness of the Polish economy has not increased since the last two decades, and
future development prospects in this area are rather gloomy. It seems that the cornerstone of the open knowledge environment building process is a systemic change concerning citizen-state relations.

Originality: The value of the article stems from emphasizing the importance of trust and cooperation as the fundamental factors influencing growth of networked innovation capabilities of society. Moreover, without promoting the development of such social attitudes it is impossible to create a modern digital society, and to profit from ideas and knowledge circulating on the Web.

Cel: celem opracowania jest ocena zdolności struktur sieciowych do ograniczenia zagrożeń wynikających z kryzysu gospodarczego w oparciu o wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w 50 przedsiębiorstwach, działających w 10 strukturach sieciowych.

Metodologia i wnioski: badania wykonano, wykorzystując metodę ankiety bezpośredniej, a respondentami byli członkowie naczelnego kierownictwa. Na podstawie badań stwierdzono, że głównymi zaletami takich struktur, ograniczającymi zagrożenia wynikające z kryzysu gospodarczego, są wzajemna pomoc partnerów, większa możliwość ekspansji rynkowej, wymiana zasobów oraz korzystniejsza pozycja w relacjach z otoczeniem gospodarczym i administracyjnym. Natomiast do podstawowych mankamentów tych struktur zaliczono: niechęć do współpracy pomiędzy partnerami sieci, myślenie autonomizacyjne, nastawione jedynie na interesy własnej jednostki oraz konflikty pomiędzy centralą sieci a firmami partnerskimi.

Oryginalność: Podjęte badania wydają się ważne zwłaszcza w obliczu nadal trwającego kryzysu gospodarczego w Polsce, jak i na świecie oraz wciąż pojawiających się nowych form organizacji sieciowych, a określenie korzyści i mankamentów funkcjonowania w strukturach sieciowych w warunkach kryzysu gospodarczego stanowi ich oryginalność.