This paper presents the results of a survey carried out in 2017. The research was focused on the behaviour of Polish local and regional formal institutions (L.G.U.s) in support of the development of local and regional entrepreneurship. The main aim was to determine which institutions are crucial for the support of the development of entrepreneurship, but, more importantly, to find why some L.G.U.s obeyed the rules of the entrepreneurship game even if the state monitoring and enforcement mechanisms were lacking. Statistical tools of correlation analysis and factor analysis were used in the research. The factor analysis added empirical evidence on the discussion on how L.G.U.s may affect development of entrepreneurship. Based on the statistically processed data obtained from research, the authors came to the conclusion that geographic location, political power, level of unemployment, size of the territory or level of debt had no impact on the behaviour of L.G.U.s in their support of the development of entrepreneurship. What mattered for the support of entrepreneurship by L.G.U.s was the model of management, type of L.G.U., and the number of enterprises within the territory governed by L.G.U.s. Moreover, only provinces fully succeeded in supporting the development of entrepreneurship, while rural municipalities failed.

This paper explores the phenomena of entrepreneurial activities of local governments such as the availability of local zoning plans, entrepreneurship support programmes or promotion of investments’ benefits in specific locations. The investigation is based on a research sample of 329 local regions from Poland selected in stratified random sampling. However, only 114 local governments (formal authorities of local regions) who responded to the mystery stakeholder communication are subject to a more detailed analysis. The findings show the differences in the potential investment attractiveness of local regions with different levels of entrepreneurial activities of local government. Moreover, local governments with higher potential investment attractiveness engage more in entrepreneurial activities.

The present paper deals with issues related to activities undertaken by local government. The article focuses on the identification and assessment of the significance of local government’s different bottom-up initiatives that support development of local entrepreneurship. The article also indirectly discusses the importance of activities referring to energy efficiency. Through the digitization process and by using digital tools, LGs realize projects, improve local actors’ awareness, and finally achieve new challenges such as a higher proportion of gross final energy consumption being from renewable sources. The aim of the paper is to present the relationship between the LGs’ entrepreneurial activities, which we call bottom-up initiatives, and the local entrepreneurship level, understood as the number of entrepreneurs active on the territory of a LG. This paper presents the results of research carried out on the bottom-up initiatives undertaken by Polish local governments to support entrepreneurship. The research was based on survey and statistical tools and stepwise regression analysis. In the paper, bottom-up initiatives undertaken by local governments (such as organizing events at the national or regional scale that enable networking among entrepreneurs or establishing departments for supporting local entrepreneurship that offer cooperation with local entrepreneurs) were found to influence the number of entrepreneurs active in local government territories. The paper concludes that local governments and their bottom-up activities are an important factor influencing local entrepreneurship development. The presented research results have implications for policy makers and may be useful for local governments in Poland and in other countries in the context of supporting entrepreneurship by undertaking bottom-up initiatives at the local level.

The goal of this paper is to identify factors which affect judges’ productivity and career choice motives with the view of increasing judicial efficiency. Specifically, the investigation focuses on such aspects as judges’ remuneration, promotion, threat of judgment revocation, service/mission, periodic assessment, the threat of a complaint about protracted proceedings or of disciplinary proceedings, the threat of destabilization of the employment relationship, status/prestige of the profession, power/authority, social recognition, leisure, as well as administrative supervision and self-monitoring. To this end, a survey was conducted among judges of three of the largest Polish regional courts and subordinate district courts. The descriptive and statistical analyses show that judges’ care for the number of cases resolved, proxying for their productivity, is significantly correlated with self-monitoring of their adjudication activity. The stability of employment, the status/prestige of the profession and a relatively high remuneration are the most important factors in terms of judges’ career choices. In their care for the number of cases resolved remuneration is, albeit, no longer a relevant factor. Judges monitor their productivity due to reasons other than remuneration, possibly the sense of service/mission and the threat of various adverse consequences, the evidence for which is, however, also rather weak.

Innovation networks may accelerate and improve the innovation process, while institutional pathologies may hamper it. This study employs the Kruskal-Wallis H test and regression analysis to determine if the relationship between institutions and innovation networks does exist among the investigated variables. The purpose of the study was to find out whether cooperation with special local institutions influences the innovative behaviour of local governments manifested by participation in innovation networks or innovation networks based on formal institutions limit institutional pathologies better than informal ones. Current paper presents results of an empirical study conducted through survey among all local governments in Poland. The findings show that previous cooperation with special local institutions influences the innovation behaviour of local governments or innovation networks based on formal rules limit the institutional pathologies of innovation networks better than those based on sanctions, common values, codes of ethics, governance codes or culture. The investigated problem is significant, as properly functioning innovation networks may generate incremental innovations, which may help to solve the contemporary challenges. The practical implications for national regulatory bodies highlight the need for an enforcement mechanism which may support the formalisation of innovation networks. Keyword : innovation networks, innovations, institutions, institutional analysis, parametric and non-parametric statistics, empirical research, Poland, the Kruskal-Wallis H test, regression analysis

Do interactions between formal and informal institutions matter for productive entrepreneurship?