Knowledge-intensive services in post-socialist cities from the perspective of 20 years of a free market economy : the Polish experience

Abstract

It was not until after 1989 that Poland and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe started their post-Fordian restructuring that increased the importance of services, including knowledge-based services, in their economies. The purpose of this study was to analyse and assess the level of development of knowledge-intensive services (KIS) in the largest cities in Poland 20 years from the collapse of the communist system. To this end, the location quotient and the establishment rate were calculated for 273,441 KIS firms that in 2010 operated in cities with populations in excess of 200,000. It has been found that 13 out of 17 cities considered in the study have relatively higher concentrations of the firms than the rest of the country. Most KIS firms in the largest cities provide high-tech knowledge intensive services and also show the strongest correlation with the level of economic development, individual entrepreneurship and the indicators of human capital quality in the cities. The structure of the Polish KIS sector changes following main trends in the world economy – the providers of the services seek to locate in the largest cities