ABSTRACT
In focusing on Poland, this chapter is concerned with the largest of the former socialist economies to join the EU in 2004. Although the scale of the dislocation represented by the transition process in all CEECs may help to explain why it is the similarities that are usually stressed rather than the differences, it is necessary to recognise that the starting point for transformation was not the same in each country. As in other aspects of the transformation process, the development of small private firms was affected by the pre-existing social and economic conditions, which resulted in different patterns of social and economic development during the transition period.
