Between research and managing a business
"My knowledge of Germany was of interest to numerous German firms wanting to establish themselves in the Polish market"
By Witold Malachowski
Dieser Artikel auf Deutsch
Witold Malachowski.
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I can still see the autumn day 24 years ago quite clearly. My wife, my two small children, and my friend taking me to the station in Warsaw in an old Fiat 125. I had no idea when I would be coming home again. At that time, a trip from Poland to Germany was almost out of reach of a young academic from Eastern Europe. My family was not allowed to accompany me then: my wife and children had to stay in Poland as an insurance that I would come back again. To this day, I am very grateful to my wife that she supported me in taking the difficult decision to go to Germany alone. That it was the right decision is something we are both convinced about today.
My research stay took me to Bonn where I worked at the research institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations in Bonn. Although I had received a 12-month fellowship from the Foundation, for some unknown reason my own institute in Warsaw had only granted me ten months. But even ten months were extremely profitable: two months after my return to Warsaw I was able to hand in my professorial dissertation. Without the research stay in Germany it would have taken years longer especially as in my own country quite basic things such as several thousand sheets of copy paper were unavailable.
I soon became Academic Director of the Research Centre for Management and Business Administration and, concurrently, Scientific Secretary of the Committee for Management Sciences. After the fall of Communism in 1989, the birth of the free trades union "Solidarity", and the beginning of the Gorbatchov era the situation in Poland changed radically. I took on a new position as Chairman of an advisory group in the Ministry of Defence.
Then business and industry got in touch. My experience from the time I was a fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, my knowledge of Germany, were of interest to numerous German firms wanting to establish themselves in the Polish market. My contribution to establishing the German-Polish Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DPIHK) was also significant. At the very first full assembly I was elected onto the Board. Since 2001 I have been Vice-President of the DPIHK.
On top of this, in 1994 I took on a chair as Director of the Research Centre for German-Polish Economic Relations at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). Under my scientific aegis a book on German-Polish economic relations or the German economy has been published every year since 1995. I initiated and am jointly responsible for an Economic Forum: German - Poland, I organize for the DPIHK and the Research Centre. At the last, the sixth Economic Forum the Polish President, Alexander Kwasniewski, participated. And since 1 June 2001 I have been a member of the Board of Volkswagen Poznan together with two German colleagues. Over and above this, I was nominated as the Representative of the Volkswagen AG in Poland.
When I think back to the autumn day when I drove to the station in Warsaw in an old Fiat to take up my fellowship as a Humboldt Fellow, I could not have started to imagine that, one day, I would be in charge of the Polish branch of VW. However, I can say openly and with gratitude: if it had not been for the fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation I should never have achieved it.
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