Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Postmodern Consumption Patterns in Polish Entrepreneurs’ Behaviour
Anna Pawłowska, Agnieszka Kacprzak, Adam Strzelecki

ABSTRACT. Along with the implementation of the free market and Poland’s opening to the international economy, the occurrences typical for postmodern society have emerged in the Polish reality. One of them is consumerism, which means the triumph of economical value that subordinates the level of personal happiness to one’s capabilities of buying and consuming. Nowadays we can notice an intense process of transposing such ready-made cultural patterns from the West to Poland. Among many reasons of this conjuncture is the fact that foreign companies entering our market use the same methods of influencing consumers’ behaviour as they use in the developed countries. But yet we have to remember that Polish recipient is different. His mentality has been shaped in conditions of centrally planned economy, when the state was trying to control all areas of life including consumer’s decision making. It means that Polish culture of consumption has been formed in totally different social circumstances than it is taking place in developed countries, thus the effects are also unlike.

This paper presents in particular the meaning and the consequences of this occurrence for the development of entrepreneurial behaviour in Poland. Based on empirical data, we deliberate the thesis that Polish entrepreneurs haven’t got a basis such as pro developmental values, enterprising mentality and so-called ‘ethics of productivity’, which would be able to make a counterweight for contradictory values of consumption culture. Shaping of Polish enterprising patterns meets large obstacles. The entrepreneurs are forced to choose between tempting trends of consumerism and investing in the development of their own companies or patient waiting for results. From the quoted researches it appears that consumerism is such a strong tendency stuck in the minds of Polish entrepreneurs that we can even speak about the occurrence of ‘consumeristic producer’ as a characteristic feature of Poland and post-communist countries in all. Whereas the Western entrepreneurs are able to separate two areas of their lives – being a consumer and being a producer – we can’t tell the same about the Polish ones. This is one of the most important obstacles in the development of small and medium entrepreneurship.

The deliberation encloses also the wider cultural context, which is used to find potential causes of existing situation and to present trends which allow us to forecast the course of these occurrences in future.

KEYWORDS: consumerism, entrepreneurship, ethics of production, consumeristic producer, Poland.

JEL classification: M13, P46, P2.