The article is related to risk management in construction undertakings. The authors discuss the nature of construction undertakings and legal aspects of these types of projects. The article presents an example of risk quantification which may occur during construction projects. The presented method of risk assessment is the authors’ original solution.

The main purpose of the article is to lay foundations for exploring Management Science (MS) as a system. The domain of the paper is the systems approach to MS, including in part its object (action systems and theorems about them), and in part the very nature of MS. The MS system comprises six sets of categories: a) superior values and authority over MS; b) mission, vision and goals of MS; c) core of MS activity; d) MS doctrine; e) internal and external independent variables interacting with MS; f) absolute constraints of MS. The key factor making MS different from natural sciences is the nature of the object of study – open, fuzzy, hybrid, variable and purposeful behaviours of action systems and civilisation systems. MS has currently reached the level of mature science, which will never be significantly higher, and will not reach the science status (level) of natural sciences. MS is bound to shape its own, unique scientific identity, however, continued commitment to scientific excellence is indispensible. MS is a complete science, drawing on the achievements of all other sciences, especially those strongly linked with economic science, while remaining separate from it. MS develops on four levels: of political, strategic, tactical and operational management. Its material scope (from local to global systems), objective scope and spacetime are not limited. I differentiate four forms of MS results: a) MS ideas; b) MS concepts; c) MS theories; d) MS paradigms, and five forms of MS theorems: a) research effort; b) scientific approach; c) scientific direction; d) scientific school; e) scientific trend. They culminate and synthesise into the respective systems of MS forms and, ultimately, into the MS system.

This article provides the basic concepts of media management looking into the historical background and contemporary concepts of specific media management. The Author has considered media management in wider (social, political and economic phenomena) and narrower terms, that relates only to management in media companies. The study of these issues is difficult, because it requires the creation of a specific concep-tual apparatus and appropriate research tools.

In the paper several dilemmas are presented which can occur when research in organiza-tions is conducted. The dilemmas are divided into two groups, which cover ontology and epistemology. In the field of ontology there are three main issues, such as the essence of organizational reality, modeling phenomena in organizations, and building definitions. In the field of epis-temology there are written dilemmas of ways of gathering information about organizations, projecting operational definitions and the choice of research methods. The inspiration for taking the challenge of such a discussion was due to a famous sen-tence which was formed in the 90’s of the XXth century. L. Krzyżanowski insisted on putting more focus on a theory’s features. The theories should be precise, cohesive, general, simple and effective. In the very beginning of management science development there were no huge troubles to obtain such goals from theories. However, nowadays the number of sub-disciplines and routes of management science is so huge that this fact causes many troubles in comparisons of research results. These troubles create dilemmas which every scientist faces during any research. The paper does not consist of precise answers to the dilemmas. Nevertheless, it is to be an asset in a larger discussion about the methodological background of management science.

Increasing integration of the world economy highlights the value of a company’s ability to compete globally. External economic conditions require an active search for ways to an-swer to increased competition. One such method is the search for synergies arising from cooperation with other firms and institutions and in particular with research institutions. An accepted and effective form of such cooperation is to create clusters. Enterprises that operate in clusters increase their competitiveness and productivity (usually through specialization). The article presents results of studies evaluating the possibility of a cooperation in busi-ness processes in the Podlaski Metalworking Cluster. The study was conducted in 2009 and 2010 as the research project „Role and impact of implementing a process approach to the organization and functioning of cluster initiatives”. The project was financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Achieving a competitive advantage is a major problem in the strategic management of each company operating in market conditions. Market realities are identified by dynamic competitive situations, characterized by the presence in the market of a large number of enterprises. Each of them is aware that the entities operating in the same market may be a threat to the company, which means that they can remove it from the market. The advantageous position of an enterprise in relation to other competitors, and thus gaining a competitive advantage over them, effectively requires overcoming restrictions resulting both from the changing environment, as well as those caused by the resources of the company. The main objective of this paper is to present how small and medium-sized enterprises operating in rural areas are acquiring and maintaining a competitive advantage in the market. The study will present competitive activities conducted by enterprises with particular emphasis on innovation, the conditions for their implementation and the opportunities and risks arising from their use, with particular regard to the specificity of the SME sector in rural areas of the Lublin province. The presented results are part of a broader research environment of small and medium sized enterprises operating in the province of Lublin.

In the article the human resources management issue in public medical units is described, according to hospitals. The information used was gathered from personnel staff, from doctors and nurses employed in hospitals from the Cuiavian and Pomeranian region. On the basis of the collected opinions analyzed and also from data connected with employment structure, the level of salary, provided trainings and trade unions the present situation and the necessary directions of changes were shown. The research has shown the increasing participation of people with a higher education. What is more, there are more women in the employment structure. There should be changes made to the system of bonification, motivation and trainings.

Changes happening in the health care sector in Poland over the last few years, have influenced changes in human resources management. However, cost restrictions, reconciliation of financial effectiveness and social effectiveness appear extremely difficult and may bring multiple negative or unethical behaviours. Therefore ethical dimensions in the process of management gains particular value. Up until now, the ethical context in research in health care centres has been related to the relations of: patients – employees of the medical service centre. Considerations on the term of an ethical company, health care centres have been seen as a particular form of health-economical organizations, which only recently could be associated with people that are employed in it. Despite the fact that the functioning of health care centres in Poland has been described multiple times in numerous publications, only a few deal with the subject of human resource management, and even if they do so only occasionally are ethical issues in the process of HMR dealt with. This has been a reason why the author of this paper started research in this field. The aim of this paper has been to analyse and evaluate ethical aspects accompanying HRM in health care centres in 2009–2011.

The aim of the article is to evaluate the moral attitudes employees of self-government institutions have. The report was made by both the employees themselves and the clients of self-government administration units. The article is a report on pilot age research carried out on a group of 760 people, out of whom 380 people were self-government employees of self-government units in the area of the Warmińsko-mazurskie and Pomorskie provinces, the other 380 people were the clients of units in the above mentioned provinces. The research indicates that the majority of respondents believe that the moral attitudes of candidates’ for self-government positions should be scrutinized, though more clients than employees tended to have such an opinion. Respondents also see clear dependence between the moral attitude of employees and the quality of their performance. Clients have bigger demands concerning moral attitudes of self-government administration employees and were much harsher in their evaluations. According to only 11,84% of employees and 9,2% of clients the moral attitudes of clerks raised no concerns or reservations. The matter of ethics in offices still needs a lot of improvement.

In current research on the team roles played by staff, prevailing methods have been de-veloped on the basis of psychometric techniques. These techniques allow us to define per-sonnel’s predispositions and their potential to play specific roles in teams. The authors’ con-cern was to verify this attitude from the point of view of the staff taking effective roles. In the research a sociometrical technique was applied, that presently forms part of a more wide approach to the study of organizing Social Relations Analysis which consisted in studying relations between different subjects. In the pilot research 3 task teams operating in public administration participated. The results indicate that application of the sociometrical method allowed us to capture differences between the effective roles played in a team and the potential defined with the use of methods based on psychometric research.

One of the ways to make radical improvements in the functioning of Polish administra-tion is to act on the performance, with measures, of the efficiency of public services. In the paper different definitions are presented of efficiency in public services. The main objective is to define measures of to increase the efficiency of public services. The author of the article describes the essence of public services, and shows that the term „efficiency in public services” is hard to define. The article also presents guidelines to build a model to measure efficiency in public services. The author presents the main areas of which councils introduce measures of efficiency. There are certain perspectives that define the measures such as: customer, processes, knowledge and finance. The examples of these measures are universal and possible to use in many types of councils. Considerations in the article don’t exhaust the whole issue – there is only the given in-formation necessary to understand the problem and the way of solving it.

The concept of public value was elaborated by M. Moore in his seminal book Creating Public Value. Although the general idea that public sector managers should create a value to the public, and ask for the legitimacy of their activities is clear, the basic notions of ”public value” and ”public value creation” are susceptible to interpretations. The article presents and analyses the most important concepts of public value. One of them is the concept of Kelly, Mulgan, Muers underpinned by strong economic assumptions on the nature of social preferences and economic value. Another concept, developed by Bennington contains a description of different aspects of public value – ecological, political, economic and cultural. The next concept developed by van der Wal and E. van Hout expresses an idea of the multiplicity and heterogeneity of public values which are incomparable. The aim of the paper is to identify the realm where public value is created. It seems to be that all opinions presented in the article regardless of the notions of public value they assume, express a statement that it is ”produced” in the domain of politics. Once again it confirms Moore’s initial idea, that the political process is crucial for public sector managers in creating public value. It is a big challenge for them, because it requires operation on the political market.

The use of marketing concepts in the management of the city has become more and more popular. Municipalities in Poland are increasingly turning to various types of marketing tools in order to improve its competitiveness. Definitely more professional marketing strategies are developed by the biggest cities and capitals of regions. In the case of small and medium-sized towns we can observe a lack of long-term plans for creating a territorial brand and marketing image. This is due to many reasons, including limited knowledge and associated narrower interpretation of the concept of territorial marketing by local government practitioners, and the mentality of the local leaders. The main research method used to prepare this paper was individual depth interviews (IDI) with 11 mayors of towns in the Podlasie Province. IDIs have shown that even in smaller towns there is a belief that marketing plays an important role in city management. Mayors are aware of the complexity of the concept of territorial marketing, but most of them define it through the prism of promotional activities. Only mayors of bigger towns identify with understanding place marketing as a philosophy of management of a territorial unit, as well as directing marketing efforts for city branding.

The paper presents the problem of ageing and its consequences for organizational life along with the results of the research conducted on the sample of 300 employees from three groups: below 35 years old, above 50 years old and managers. Aging already has an impact and will have an even stronger impact in the future both in a societal life and an organiza-tional one. For the societal impact brings demographic decline and rising costs in pension and healthcare systems, for organizations it brings challenges for human resource manage-ment connected with the lower availability of young employees and their necessity on one hand and the opportunity on the other for utilizing skills and experience of older employees. Therefore it is interesting from both a scientific and practical point of view to investigate the relationships between age groups in organizations and mutual expectations and opinions. The presented reseaarch results allow us to conclude that both age groups and the relations between them base their approach on stereotypes and prejudices concerning for instance social competencies. Research results draw a view on how those age groups perceive each other and the mechanisms of inter-generational conflict. Based on research results, an innovative workshop method – Intermentoring – has been developed. The purpose of the method is to facilitate and improve work in age diversified teams despite intergenerational differences.

The focus of this paper is to present the theories and principles of organizational communication. Special emphasis is put on communication in public schools. The author of this study tried to establish which model of organizational communication may constitute the basis of effective communication in public schools. Alongside the analysis of communication processes in schools, forms and directions of organizational communication were identified.

According to contemporary concepts of management the main factor of development seems to be managing, understood as supervising, which is mainly based on making the right decisions. It is possible to achieve success in an organization thanks to great innovative ma-nagers who are precise in defining missions and setting goals, they base their managing style on trust, cooperation with employees, and most of all they possess a very charismatic perso-nality. What is also important here is theoretical knowledge, experience gained throughout years of performance, initiative, competences, ability to improve skills, imagination, being open-minded about rapidly progressing changes and above all high levels of interpersonal competences. Therefore, to be a professional manager one needs to be capable of being a leader. Nowadays the demand for effective management seen through the prism of interpersonal competences that managers possess is on the increase. These proper interpersonal competences are extremely important, however, as it is commonly known, the effectiveness of management does not only depend on competences. Efficient management depends mainly on interpersonal competences that managers possess, therefore this article is devoted to this subject.