The European Union Structural Funds and Regional Development. The Perspective of Small and Medium Enterprises in Eastern Poland

Abstract

The article concentrates on the role of European Union (EU) structural funds in the development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The analysis presented in this paper is based on the results of computer-assisted telephone interviews conducted with 394 representatives of enterprises localized in three Polish Voivodships: the Podkarpackie, the Lubelskie and the Podlaskie. The entire EU structural funds are based on the assumption that by additionally financing the development of SMEs, they influence regional development indirectly. Even though EU structural funds are not the only factor influencing economic growth and the creation of Gross Domestic Product, they affect the development potential of enterprises indirectly. However, from the perspective of the representatives of researched SMEs, EU structural funds are not so significant for commitment to investment. Actually, for SMEs in Eastern Poland, they have no effect on future investment plans. This bottom-up perspective researched in one of the poorest areas of the EU puts the assumption of the positive relation between the EU structural funds and regional development into doubt.     

Gendering boundary work: exploring excluded spaces in supermarket job rotation

The article explores the establishment of gendering divides in organisations by bridging Hernes' (2004) typologies of physical, social and mental boundary work with notions on the practice of gender as negotiated in everyday organisational activities. In the investigated Swedish supermarket, the pre-store, a narrow, front-stage space in which only women worked, was excluded from the job rotation that otherwise dominated the organisation of work in the store. This study examines: (1) how and on what grounds the divides of the pre-store were established in the supermarket and (2) how spatial divides were incorporated into the practice of gender and work in the supermarket. The findings suggest that the divides that are visible through the exclusion of the pre-store from the job rotation involved not only the allocation of work and space but also multiple and complex physical, social and mental spatial negotiations undertaken by both employees and managers. Together, these factors neutralised the divides as an aspect of the activities. First, the notion that gender was irrelevant for organisational decisions makes gender a non-issue for the organisation of the pre-store activities. Second, the notion that women and men are essentially different provided a ground for explaining why, despite being an organisational non-issue, work and workers were in fact organised along gendered lines in the supermarket. The study contributes with qualitative insights regarding the micro-political practices that make gender into a neutralised non-issue in organisations and, in particular, the intertwinement of spatial practices and negotiations.     

Different staining substances were used in decorative and therapeutic tattoos in a 1000-year-old Peruvian mummy

From a 1000-year-old mummy, found unwrapped in the sand of the desert at Chiribaya Alta in Southern Peru, two different kinds of tattoos were investigated: decorative tattoos displaying different animals and symbolic ciphers were present on the extremities and tattooed circles on the neck region.     

Children and playgrounds in Mediterranean cities

This paper presents the first results of a case study on the ways in which playgrounds are constructed and experienced in children's daily lives in two medium sized Mediterranean Catalan cities. The research is based on qualitative methodology through participant observation and interviews with institutional actors. Our research suggests that playgrounds are organised around age as the central category; nevertheless, gender is important in the use and activities developed as children get older. Specific aspects from Mediterranean and medium-sized cities are raised such as a positive perception and an intense use of public space by both adults and children. Specific childhood policies in city planning and a stronger gender awareness among institutional actors would improve the social role of playgrounds as participatory, socialising and inclusive spaces.     

Weiterentwicklung der Zentrenstruktur in Verdichtungsräumen

Die Verdichtungsr?ume werden zunehmend gepr?gt von einem anhaltenden Ansiedlungs– und Erweiterungsdruck gro?fl?chiger Einzelhandelsbetriebe. Dadurch werden Auswirkungen auf die Zentren– und Versorgungsstrukturen befürchtet. Die Fl?chennachfrage betrifft insbesondere die verkehrsgünstigen, nicht zentrenintegrierten Standorte innerhalb der Kernstadt sowie Standorte in den angrenzenden St?dten und Gemeinden. Darüber hinaus existieren bereits vielfach Einzelhandelsagglomerationen mit hohem Anteil an gro?fl?chigen Vertriebsformen. Grundlage für die raumordnerische Beurteilung von Gro?fl?chen– und Einzelhandelsprojekten ist das – in Niedersachsen dreistufige – System der Zentralen Orte (Ober– Mittel– und Grundzentren), auf Basis dessen in den Regionalen Raumordnungsprogrammen (RROP) n?here Aussagen getroffen werden. Allgemein besteht dabei die regionalplanerische Forderung nach funktionaler und regionaler Integration von Einzelhandelsvorgaben bzw. –standorten in die st?dtische und regionale Versorgungsstruktur: • Art und Umfang des Vorhabens (Versorgungsbedeutung, ausgedrückt in der Einzelhandelszentralit?t und dem Einzugsbereich) sollen der zentral?rtlichen Bedeutung der Standortkommune entsprechen. • In engem Zusammenhang damit sollen die Gesamtstrukturen des Einzelhandels und der Einzugsbereich in einem angemessenen Verh?ltnis zur Bev?lkerungszahl im Verflechtungsbereich stehen bzw. diesen nicht wesentlich überschreiben (wobei die Verflechtungsbereiche in Niedersachsen nicht weiter definiert sind). Faktisch sind jedoch – neben dem Netz der Zentralen Orte – sekund?re, angebotsorientierte Standortnetze des gro?fl?chigen Einzelhandels entstanden. Aus Sicht der Raumordnung stellt sich somit das Problem, dass die Zentrale–Orte–Hierarchie als Bewertungsgrundlage insbesondere für st?dtebaulich schwer integrierbare gro?fl?chige Einzelhandelsbetriebe gerade in Verdichtungsr?umen unzureichend ist (vgl. CONVENT & v. Rohr 1997.     

Access to capital markets and the geography of productivity leaders and laggards

This paper examines whether access to the capital market of convertible and nonconvertible bonds affects total factor productivity (TFP) for the population of Italian joint stock manufacturing companies, based in highly segmented local financial markets, between 2007 and 2017. The hypothesis, well grounded in the literature, is that long-term capital favors investment in intangibles and other risky assets necessary for productivity growth. To identify this effect, we exploit the exogenous shock of the Italian banking deregulation of the mid-1990s as an instrument for firm-level access to capital, interacted with distance from logistic networks. These reforms changed the distribution of the type of branches at the local level, increasing the share of joint stock banks, which have high connections to international capital markets. This geographical reallocation of banking activities ultimately affected firms' financial structure, favouring their access to capital, even when based in peripheral financial areas. Firms which issued instruments of market debt achieved higher levels of productivity and a higher probability to reach top percentiles of productivity distribution.     

Innovative Trends in Women's and Gender Studies of the National Socialist Era

The text is less a review of the new literature than a reflectionon significant and innovative current trends in the historiographyon women and gender in the National Socialist era. The firstpart deals with various women's activities within milieus andprofessions, including their room for manoeuvre: midwives, socialworkers, female Nazi functionaries, and female auxiliary workersof the Nazi Wehrmacht. The second part of the article addressesspecific features of biopolitics, targeted not only againstJews but also against asocial women, homosexuals and prostitutes.It also looks at visual images of bodies. Although the Nazistried to create strongly determined binaries to categorize ‘we’and ‘the others’ in the arts and other propagandamaterial, there existed, in fact, a broad spectrum of body images,especially among media stars. A third trend in the history ofthe Third Reich deals not only with the politics of exclusionbut also of inclusion, as found in the concept of Volksgemeinschaft(national community), a concept that had many facets, such asthe Volksfamilie, comradeship and home front. And it was themedia that had the task of ‘translating’ this conceptto the people in many appealing ways. The fourth part considersthe gendering of memories after 1945 and the dominance of malenarratives and points of view. The four parts of the articleare intended to contribute to intersectional history and thehistory of social engineering.