ABSTRACT
The primary goal of this chapter is to describe the nature of human resource management (HRM) practice in Poland. After World War II Poland, together with many other Central and Eastern European countries, fell under Soviet influence as a consequence of the Yalta agreement. But after 45 years Poland appeared to be the first country to liberate itself from those fetters in 1989 and started substantial economic reforms toward a market economy. The vast scale of defaults that had been made before this breaking year as well as transformations that Poland has come through since then – all these make significant conditions for changes in the scope of contemporary HRM practices. This is why we recognized outlining these conditions as reasonable and decided to engage a good deal of attention on them. We believe this will bring readers to a better understanding of the present state of affairs. Nonetheless, the main emphasis is on contemporary HRM practices and their context. The context, appearing at the beginning and throughout the whole chapter, is discussed with reference to various environmental factors, namely macroeconomic, legal, social, cultural, educational and technological, all set against the backdrop of internationalization and globalization.
