The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the enterprise restructuring process, which has typified the experience of post-communist industry, on local communities. It is argued that restructuring has had differential impacts on communities, and one key factor in making this judgment is the nature of the enterprise-community relationship inherited from the former state socialist regime. Conceptually, this relationship can be understood in terms of the social and institutional embeddedness of the enterprise in its local community. The paper draws upon research into three large former state enterprises in the now Czech Republic in order to examine the effects of different degrees of embeddedness on the impact of restructuring decisions to reduce enterprise overstaffing, and to unburden the enterprise of its social and welfare assets and activities.
ALDRICH, H.Organizations and environments. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979.
2.
ALVESSON, M., & LINDKVIST, L.Transaction costs, clans and corporate culture. Journal of Management Studies, 1993, 30427-452.
3.
ARNOT, B.Controlling soviet labour: Experimental change from Brezhnev to Gorbachev. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.
4.
BATT, J.East central Europe from reform to transformation, London: Pinter, 1991.
5.
BENASSI, M.Organizational perspectives of strategic alliances. In G. Grabher (Ed.), The embedded firm: On the socio-economics of industrial networks. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 95-115.
6.
BROM,K., & ORENSTEIN, M.The privatised sector in the Czech Republic: Government and bank control in a transitional economy. Europe-Asia Studies, 1994, 46, 893-928.
7.
BUSINESS CENTRAL EUROPE. Foreign investment survey, 1994, 2/10 (April), pp. 35-50.
8.
CASTLE-KANEROVA, M.Social policy in Czechoslovakia. In B. Deacon et al. (Eds.), The new Eastern Europe: social policy past, present and future. London: Sage, 1992, pp. 91-117.
9.
CHILD, J.Organisation: A guide to problems and practice, (2nd ed.). London: Harper and Row, 1984.
10.
CHILD, J.Society and enterprise between hierarchy and market. In J. Child, M. Crozier, and R. Mayntz et al. (Eds.), Societal change between market and organization. Aldershot: Avebury, 1993, pp. 203-223.
11.
CHILD, J., & MARKOCZY, L.Host-country managerial behaviour and learning in Chinese and Hungarian joint ventures. Journal of Management Studies, 1993, 30, 611-630.
12.
CLAGUE, C.The journey to the market economy. In C. Clague and G. Rausser (Eds.), The emergence of market economies in Eastern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 1-22.
13.
CLARK, E., & SOULSBY, A.Transforming former state enterprises in the Czech Republic. Organization Studies, 1995, 16, 215-242.
14.
CLARK, E., & SOULSBY, A.The re-formation of the managerial elite in the Czech Republic. Europe-Asia Studies, 1996, 48, 285-303.
15.
COLEMAN, J. S.Introducing social structure into economic analysis. American Economic Review, 1984, 74, 84-88.
16.
CONTRACTOR, F. J., & LORANGE, P.Why should firms cooperate? The strategy and economic basis for cooperative ventures. In F. Contractor and P. Lorange (Eds.), Cooperative strategies in international business. Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1988, pp. 3-30.
17.
DEACON, B.East European welfare: Past, present and future in comparative context. In B. Deacon et al. (Eds.), The new eastern Europe: social policy past, present and fiture. London: Sage, 1992, pp. 1-30.
18.
FISCHER, S.Privatization in East European transformation. In C. Clague and G. Rausser (Eds.), The emergence of market economies in Eastern Europe. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 227-243.
19.
FRYDMAN, R., RAPACZYNSKI, A., & EARLE, J., et al. The privatization process in central Europe. London: Central European Press, 1993.
20.
GRABHER, G.Rediscovering the social in the economics of interfirm relations. In G. Grabher (Ed.), The embedded firm: On the socio-economics of industrial networks. London: Routledge, 1993, pp.1-31. (a)
21.
GRABHER, G.The weakness of strong ties: The lock-in of regional development in the Ruhr area. In G. Grabher (Ed.), The embedded firm: On the socio-economics of industrial networks. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 255-277. (b)
22.
GRANDORI, A., & SODA, G.Inter-firm networks: Antecedents, mechanisms and forms. Organization Studies, 1995, 16, 183-214.
23.
GRANOVéJ!TER, M.Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. Amencan Journal of Sociology, 1985, 91, 481-510.
24.
GRANOVETTER, M.Coase revisited: Business groups in the modern economy. Industrial and Corporate Change, 1995, 4, 93-130.
25.
GULATI, R.Does familiarity breed trust? The implications of repeated ties for contractual choice in alliances. Academy of Management Journal, 1995, 3885-112.
HARE, P.The assessment: Microeconomics of transition in eastern Europe. Oxord Review of Economic Policy, 1991, 7, 1-15.
28.
HAYNES, M.Class and crisis-the transition in Eastern Europe. International Socialism, 1992, March, 45-104.
29.
JEPPERSON, R.Institutions, institutional effects and institutionalism. In W. Powell and P. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 143-163.
30.
KILLING, J. P.Understanding alliances: The role of task and organizational complexity. In F. Contractor and P. Lorange (Eds.), Cooperative strategies in international business. Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1988, pp. 55-67.
31.
MARKOCZY, L.Managerial and organizational learning in Hungarian-Western mixed management organizations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1993, 4, 277-304.
32.
MAYNTZ, R.Modernization and the logic of interorganizational networks. In J. Child, M. Crozier, and R. Mayntz et al. (Eds.), Societal change between market and organization. Aldershot: Avebury, 1993, pp. 3-18.
33.
McCAULEY, A.The economic transition in Eastern Europe: Employment, income distribution, and the social security net. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 1991, 7, 93-105.
34.
McDERMOTT, G.Legacies, Linkages, Localities. Rethinking the Ties that Bind. The Limits of Privatisation in the Czech Republic. Paper presented at the Conference on the Social Embeddedness of the Economic Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe. Berlin, September 24-25, 1993.
35.
MEYER, J., & ROWAN, B.Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 1977, 83, 340-363.
36.
MINTZBERG, H.The structuring of organizations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979.
37.
MINTZBERG, H.Power in and around organizations. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1983.
38.
MURRELL, P.Evolution in economics and in the economic reform of the centrally planned economies. In C. Clague and G. Rausser (Eds.), The emergence of market economies in Eastem Europe. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992, pp. 35-53.
39.
PFEFFER, J., & SALANCIK, G.The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.
40.
RADICE, H.Organizing markets in central and Eastern Europe: Competition, governance and the role of foreign capital. In E. Dittrich, G. Schmidt, and R. Whitley (Eds.), Industrial transformation in Europe. London: Sage, 1995, pp. 109-133.
RUTLAND, P.Thatcherism, Czech-style: Transition to capitalism in the Czech Republic. Telos, 1993/4, 94, 103-129.
43.
RYBCZYNSKI, T.The sequencing of reform. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 1991, 7, 26-34.
44.
SALAMAN, G.Work organizations: Resistance and control. London: Longman, 1979.
45.
SOULSBY, A., & CLARK, E.Privatisation and the restructuring of enterprise social and welfare assets in the Czech Republic. Industrial Relations Journal1995, 26, 97-109.
46.
SOULSBY, A., & CLARK, E.The emergence of post-communist management in the Czech Republic. Organization Studies, 1996, 17227-247.
TSOUKAS, H.Socio-economic systems and organizational management: An institutional perspective on the socialist firm. Organization Studies, 1994, 1521-45.
