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This article aims to consider success in terms of the financial returns and risks of new public management (NPM) in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs).

Financial returns of New Zealand SOEs were examined through a review of their annual reports over a five‐year period. Dimensions of risk were examined through interviews conducted in two phases over a two‐year period with senior executives from 12 of the (then) 17 SOEs operating in New Zealand.

Findings indicate the potential for SOEs to operate as profitable government investments, with clear support for positive financial returns under NPM. However, variations noted within individual SOEs also indicate that profitable and commercial operations may not be possible in all cases. An examination of the risks associated with SOEs' operations reveals a number of dimensions of risk, encompassing financial, political (including regulatory), reputational, and public accountability aspects.

There is a need for an enhanced awareness on the part of internal and external stakeholders (such as the government and general public) of the risks SOEs face in pursuing higher levels of profitability. Also required, is a more acute understanding on the part of internal and external stakeholders (e.g. government and the public) of the need for SOEs to manage the range of risks identified, given the potentially delicate balance between risk and return.

While previous studies have considered the financial returns of SOEs, or the risks faced by the public sector in terms of accountability, few have addressed the two issues collectively in a single context.

Five years after the deregulation of New Zealand′s telecommunications and broad‐casting markets, the country′s two state‐owned broadcasters had achieved widely differing levels of internationalization and financial performance. Television New Zealand, the more active international marketer, was continuing to develop and expand its international business, while Radio New Zealand, which had adopted a more passive, reactive stance, earned negligible returns from its offshore interests and de‐internationalized. Shows that internationalization is best viewed as an experiential process, with international marketing investment decision making directly influenced by managerial characteristics, particularly levels of international business experience, orientation and commitment, and that environmental factors are also important influences on managers′ aspirations and expectations, the policies and strategies adopted and the levels of company internationalization and performance achieved.

Innovation is critical to organizational survival, competitive advantage, and economic development. Yet the process by which innovative strategic behavior occurs is not well understood. This paper takes advantage of rapidly changing corporate governance structures and environmental conditions during China's economic transition to explore the role of corporate ownership in shaping firm innovation. We argue that managers draw on internal strengths within external constraints to develop strategies and that the nature of corporate ownership determines the degree to which internal or external factors are salient. We capitalize on differences between Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and collective enterprises and other non-state firms (CNFs) in the adoption of firm strategies during transition. Analyzing data from 1994 to 1999 on 800 Chinese firms, we study the effect of ownership type on the adoption of four key organizational innovations and identify major strategic groups that developed during reform. The findings provide important insight into the role of corporate governance in influencing strategy formation and adaptation, outcomes that are increasingly important in all economies.

This paper aims to argue that in the short history of New Zealand banking, political experimentation, based at first upon socialist ideology of the 1940s led to the nationalisation of The Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), followed by a period of neo‐liberalism in the 1980s and early 1990s in which the bank was privatised. It further argues that the establishment of Kiwibank Ltd in New Zealand at the dawn of the twenty‐first century was a return to the political ideology of the 1940s.

The paper discusses the nationalisation and subsequent privatisation of the BNZ and draws a parallel between the perceived banking environment as it existed in New Zealand in the twentieth century and as it existed at the establishment of Kiwibank. By way of context setting it also discusses the political environment as it relates to the nationalisation of the Bank of England.

The paper finds that in New Zealand, political experimentation, not commercial pragmatism, was the underlying motivating factor for the state's involvement in banking.

The paper contributes to the pool of knowledge regarding the political motivations behind nationalisation and state ownership of banking assets. The article is of interest to economic and political historians as well as those who study New Zealand political party history. Future policy makers could do well to reflect upon the motivations for state ownership of banking assets by asking if their decisions are driven by ideology or economics.

The purpose of this study is to consider the potential for profit under new public management, through a study of New Zealand's state‐owned enterprises (SOEs).

“Examination from the outside” involved analysis of financial data from 2001 to 2005 for the SOE sector. “Inquiry from the inside” involved interviews with senior executives from 12 of the 17 SOEs operating in New Zealand.

Findings indicate the potential for SOEs as profitable government investments, with clear support for financial returns under NPM.

While this study is limited to SOEs in New Zealand, it provides valuable insight into one country's SOE sector, and offers a platform for similar studies in other countries. Strong financial returns from several SOEs highlight the potential for SOEs as valuable investments, and an important alternative to traditional sources of government funding. However, variations noted in the financial returns of individual SOEs also indicate that profitable and commercial operations may not be possible in all cases.

The value of this paper lies in the combination of quantitative and qualitative data, to provide insight not only into SOEs' financial performance, but also into the operational and strategic issues underlying that performance.

This paper seeks to examine the role of customer orientation in a model of affective and behavioural job outcomes grounded in Bagozzi's reformulation of attitude theory in the new public management context of a former public sector government department that has undergone corporatisation and now operates as a state‐owned enterprise (SOE).

Frontline employees (FLEs) complete a self‐administered questionnaire on how customer orientation affects their job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and how these job attitudes impact service recovery performance and turnover intentions. Data obtained from the FLEs were analysed using the structural equation modeling‐based partial least squares methodology.

Seven of eight hypotheses are supported. Results suggest that there is a significant influence of customer orientation on job satisfaction and organisational commitment, which in turn influence service recovery performance and turnover intentions.

The research advances understanding of the influence of customer orientation on affective and behavioural job outcomes. SOE managers can take actions on a number of different fronts to assist progress towards improving FLE service recovery efforts and reduce turnover intentions.

The impact of customer orientation on affective job outcomes (job satisfaction and organisational commitment) and behavioural job outcomes (service recovery performance and turnover intentions) has not been investigated in the context of SOEs.

This paper aims to examine the integration of entrepreneurship and strategy to develop a conceptual framework of strategic entrepreneurship. The framework is developed through an analysis of theory and refined through an examination of practice.

This framework is considered in the context of potentially entrepreneurial and strategic activity undertaken by 12 of the 17 state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) operating in New Zealand in 2006‐2007. Based on a review of documents, observation, and interviews with SOE executives, cases of 12 SOE activities were analysed to compare and contrast strategic entrepreneurship in practice.

The findings reveal distinct elements within the four activities classified as strategic entrepreneurship, activities, such as leveraging from core skills and resources from a strategic perspective, and innovation from an entrepreneurial perspective.

This study is one of the first to examine the nature of strategic entrepreneurship in practice and the associated financial returns.

This paper explores the sociological, economic, and political reasons for the collapse of Venezuela's 40-year “pacted” democracy, the eight-year conflict between the country's new president and the opposition, where this conflict has led Venezuela, and what its prospects are for the near future. It proposes that the collapse of Venezuela's “ancien regime” can best be understood by an examination of the impact the rise and fall of oil prices had on its economy, society, and polity. A 20-year economic decline led to the election of Hugo Chavez, a radical outsider, who refused to play along with the country's old political class. This class, in turn, refused to accept Chavez as the legitimately elected president and launched the country on an eight-year roller-coaster ride of counter-revolution and radicalization, which recently ended with the reelection of Chavez and a massive popular endorsement for the establishment of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela. Exactly what such a project means is still unclear, but it so far involves state support for self-managed workplaces and an anti-capitalist and participatory democratic state in the midst of a still functioning capitalist economy. With the apparent defeat of obstacles that are external to the Bolivarian movement, as the pro-Chavez movement is called, such as the domestic opposition and U.S. intervention, the movement is now forced to confront its internal obstacles, such as clientelism, corruption, and personalism, if it is to succeed in the long run.