ABSTRACT
The contrast between what was available to consumers in Poland and what could be had in London was overwhelming and became a factor in the subsequent and rapid dissolution of the old system. Poland was blessed with a functioning railway network and, together with every Pole’s instinct to tend a market garden, the meant that the Polish experienced fewer deprivations than many other peoples. Western companies, most particularly German companies, have moved into Poland. Coca-Cola has commandeered about 70 per cent of the cola market. In Poland, despite the rapid emergence, by the mid-1990s, of a more competitive and entrepreneurial economy, marketing at best is regarded as advertising and ‘the hard sell’, and at worst is seen as a rather sinister means of manipulation. A factor at work is the absence of a common language between them, literally and metaphorically: management terminology is being introduced into Polish and Poland inconsistently and unevenly used and applied across the business community.
