The Crisis and Beyond: The Dynamics and Restructuring of Automotive Industry in Poland

Abstract:

The Crisis and Beyond: The Dynamics and Restructuring of Automotive Industry in Poland

Bolesław Domański, Robert Guzik, Krzysztof Gwosdz, Magdalena Dej
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Poland has been one of the winners of the new international division of labour in the European automotive industry at the turn of the centuries. The dynamic growth fuelled by foreign investment created the relatively broad scope of production activities with a large number of suppliers and fast increasing exports. This was accompanied by a gradual, though selective, industrial upgrading.
The global financial crisis resulted not only in lower car sales, but also in a changing geopolitical order and geographically differentiated public intervention. The authors address the issue of the impact of recent economic and political changes on the development of automotive industry in the Central European semi-periphery. Special emphasis is on the effects on the production and non-production competences of carmakers and suppliers located in Poland, and hence their position in global value chains. Different strategies and development trajectories of various foreign-owned and indigenous companies are analyzed and interpreted from the point of view of their ownership, size, position in the supply chain, product specialization and labour- and capital-intensive character of production. It is particularly interesting to explore and compare, on the one hand, the attributes of the delocalized activities (relocated to other countries), and on the other, the entry of new automotive activities into Poland and their features in the last five years.
The current restructuring processes and their effects reflect the capability of the different actors to adjust to the current rapid changes and their relationships with the local milieu, including local labour market conditions. Consequently, the restructuring processes has uneven impact on various regions of the country, which is also examined and discussed in the paper.