Ideal Organizations: Creating Myths of Enterprises through Monuments in Communist-Era Poland
Myths are messages that shape people’s imaginations, determine how they perceive the world, and shape their attitudes and behaviors. Monuments are an important source of myths. In communist-era Poland, they gave enterprises a special social status. The aim of this paper is to identify the myths hidden behind such monuments and to point to the ideas about workplaces which they fostered. Appropriate research has been carried out to achieve this goal, identifying monuments to enterprises erected in communist-era Poland, collecting stories related to them, and carrying out an analysis of the assembled data. Thanks to the analysis, it has been possible to distinguish five categories of myths: 1) greatness and perfection, 2) breaking down barriers, 3) heroism and tragedy, 4) inspiration and afflation, and 5) social mission. It has also been found that these myths created the image of an ideal socialist organization in people’s imaginations.