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The purpose of this paper is examine governance and enterprise restructuring in Southeast Europe (SEE) (Western Balkans) transition economies. International organizations classify the following countries in SEE (Western Balkans): Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has governance and enterprise restructuring as a basic indicator of economic transition and defines it as effective corporate governance and corporate control exercised through domestic financial institutions and markets, fostering market‐driven restructuring. The corporate governance is most often defined in terms of the roles, responsibilities, and interactions of top management and the board of directors. Using data of SEE economies, the interrelationships between governance and enterprise restructuring and set of policies that influence the governance patterns will be examined.

Due to the analysis of the first assumption where a relation was made between governance and enterprise restructuring and imposed set of policies, the results have shown that there are mixed outcomes. The second hypothesis analyzed the importance and progress of corporate governance and enterprise restructuring.

The paper shows that the overall outcome of SEE countries is mixed, as there are significant improvements in some countries and noteworthy lags in others. Indeed, needed considerable improvement is needed in corporate governance, institution‐building controlling agency problems and in imposing already adopted regulation; as well as adopting new ways of enterprise restructuring policies within existing policies of overall transition economy restructuring.

In the mid‐1990s, China introduced the Modern Enterprise System (MES) to selected state‐owned enterprises (SOE). The paper aims to examine whether this reform led to improved efficiency and profitability.

The efficiency and performance of enterprises before and after the economic restructuring are examined. Univariate and multivariate (regression) analyses are used to investigate whether there has been a significant change in an enterprise's performance.

The paper finds there is no improvement in efficiency and profitability after the restructuring. This can be attributed the lack of improvement to the state's ownership of enterprises, bureaucratic management, and poor corporate governance. These things have to change in order to improve corporate efficiency and performance.

China's reform of SOEs is very important to the economic well‐being of the country. This paper is the first to investigate the MES as applied to wholly state‐owned enterprises.

Many Sino‐foreign joint ventures are set up by acquiring existing state enterprises. Under this arrangement, the foreign partner normally has to restructure the original state enterprise by transferring its routines to China. More often than not, resistance to change is experienced during the transition period. This paper explores the factors affecting such resistance. A grounded theory approach using five cases is adopted. The major factors identified are: Chinese partner's perceived need for change, number of active foreign partners, deployment of experts by the foreign partner, age of the former state enterprise, and joint venture performance. Propositions are derived from the case evidence and relevant literature. A preliminary model linking up the propositions is developed.

Examines Eastern Europe’s struggle to privatise since the end of Communism; in particular reports on the experiences of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia. The danger of fast privatisation without restructuring is demonstrated by Czechoslovakia’s experience. Poland shows the importance of employing tight budget constraints. Russia demonstrates that privatisation in chaos is unlikely to produce real change.

The distribution of state property to the private sector has always been and will continue to be intensely political. Relinquishing hiring, production, investment, and other enterprise decisions constitute a significant loss of potential rents to those who exercise control rights in state-owned enterprises. Additionally, the large transfer of wealth that privatization on a large-scale entails, combined with the potential for unemployment, loss of access to enterprise-based social services (which were substantial in state-socialist economies) threatens to undermine public support for privatization and reform in general.

In theory, the method employed to transfer ownership from public to private hands is a secondary concern. But when the legal-institutional environment is weak, the method of sale matters greatly. The experiences of the transition economies have taught us that different forms of sales methods produce very different types of owners, who vary greatly in their commitment to, and ability to carry out restructuring (meaning the changes required to allow the firm to survive in a competitive market setting). The method of privatization is thus an important factor in determining¹ an efficient allocation of ownership rights.

Suggests that the corporate governance (CG) systems of transition economies in Eastern Europe may differ from those of industrialized countries and describes the governance system in Poland, which uses National Investment Funds (NIFs) under supervisory boards and the Treasury to deal with the restructuring of enterprises to be privatized. Outlines the financial market environment in Poland and the NIFs’ role within it; and discusses the CG issues arising from the relationships between the NIFs and the supervisory boards. Recognizes the problems involved but doubts whether the use of UK/US or german CG systems would solve them. Hopes that the paper will provide a basis for further research.

Little systematic work has been completed on the incidence of employee ownership in a Chinese context. Similar to the situation in Eastern Europe, this type of ownership was quite widespread in China, particularly during the 1990s. Based on the existing literature and available statistical data, the purpose of this paper is to identify drivers of, and barriers to, the development of employee ownership in China.

The scattered evidence from the literature and official statistical sources are collected and structured in a systematic analysis where the drivers and barriers for employee ownership in the transition process from plan to market are identified at three levels: society, the company and the individual.

Employee ownership developed as a transitory stage between state and private ownership; employees acquired ownership stakes as part of the privatisation of small- and medium-sized state-owned enterprises as well as collectively owned enterprises. However, in most cases the dynamics of ownership resulted in dominant ownership by managers. This trend became more noticeable at later stages of the privatisation process.

The paper shows how policies and institutional settings at the society level are determining for the development of employee ownership.

The contribution of the paper is to give a general and systematic analysis of the development of employee ownership in China both based on a comprehensive literature review and by utilising existing statistical sources.

It is over five years since the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) initiated a rapid programme of economic reforms. Although substantial progress has been achieved within this short period, especially with regard to price and monetary reforms, trade liberalisation and privatisation of large state‐owned enterprises, the majority of these countries have yet to develop a properly functioning financial market to accommodate the financing needs of the growing population of privatised firms. While considerable progress has been made in reforming and modernising the banking and financial sectors, the undercapitalisation of banks and the limited capacity of financial institutions to fill the capital gap (Dockery, 1995) have tended to cause slowness in restructuring the enterprises and general economic progress. The continuing demands for investment capital by the newly privatised firms (and those in the process) require active support of financial institutions to provide the much needed capital in the emerging market economy.

We find that: (i) substantial insider ownership persists, though majority ownership by non-managerial employees is eroding fast; (ii) flexible pay systems and state-mandated forms of employee representation are becoming more common; and (iii) while increased employee influence is sometimes apparent, privatization often does not produce fundamental changes in inherited patterns of corporate governance.The evidence of the impact upon enterprise productivity indicates: (i) no persuasive evidence that a single form of private ownership is most efficient or that the key obstacle to enhanced performance is employee participation in economic returns; (ii) some evidence that employee participation enhances business productivity; (iii) limited evidence that employee participation boosts the effect of employee ownership and employee participation in profits; and (iv) a role for ownership dynamics as well as changes in patterns of influence in accounting for the determinants of differences in labor productivity. Thus it appears that widely differing ownership structures may be most appropriate when institutional contexts vary.