Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple stakeholders’ perceptions of leadership in Vietnamese state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews that were conducted in Vietnam, with seven different stakeholders who had varying understandings of Vietnamese business leadership within the Vietnamese business context. All interviews were transcribed, then translated into English, and thematic analysis of the interview data undertaken.

The paper suggests that there was a significant variation in Vietnamese leadership perceptions when compared to Western leadership practices, especially when considering the perceptions of those stakeholders with regard to business leadership in the Vietnamese collectivist cultural context. The themes presented include: SOE decision making and responsibility; SOE promotions and appointments; and SOE performance.

In the absence of studies of leadership in Vietnamese SOEs, and leadership studies in the Vietnamese culture in general, this research was deliberately exploratory and qualitative. Future mixed methods or quantitative studies are recommended to offer more generalizable conclusions.

Implications are discussed that point to leadership changes in Vietnamese organizations, and at the individual level, to assist the Vietnamese government, SOEs, and future leaders. Recommendations are also made that are intended to assist foreign business investors and multinational companies operating in Vietnam, now and in the future, to improve their leadership capacity within this context.

Vietnam is a country in social and economic transition. Understanding the leadership practices and perceptions, especially how that might differ from leadership in Western nations, is critical for the success of organizations in Vietnam and, in turn, for the economic and social prosperity of the Vietnamese people.

The paper contributes perceptions of business leadership in Vietnamese SOEs that have not previously been explored and should be, especially given this critical time of economic and social transition for the Vietnamese nation and economy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine why and when followers of transformational leaders exhibit increased affective organizational commitment. Particularly, the authors examined the role played by perceived organizational support (POS) and supervisor’s organizational embodiment (SOE), i.e. a perception concerning the extent to which employees identify their supervisor with the organization, in this relationship.

In total, 287 employees of a water producer organization responded to a questionnaire.

The results show that, when employees strongly identify their supervisor with the organization, transformational leadership is positively related to POS, with positive consequences in terms of emotional attachment to this organization. In contrast, when the supervisor is not identified to the organization, his/her transformational leadership does not extend to POS and, finally, to affective organizational commitment.

The findings suggest that a high transformational leadership and a high SOE together engender the highest POS and affective commitment. Organizations should thus provide their managers with training programs and feedbacks over their performance as leaders to promote transformational leadership. Furthermore, to foster perceptions of SOE, organizations might implement socialization tactics aiming to strengthen managers’ organizational identification or person-organization fit, and give managers more power and influence in their day-to-day work to increase employees’ attributions of informal organizational status to managers.

By showing that POS and SOE are important mechanisms in the transformational leadership-affective commitment relationship, this research explains why and when transformational leadership of supervisors has spillover effect on organization-directed attitudes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine Chinese employees' perceptions on their ethical decision making in relation to the workplace guanxi context in state‐owned enterprises (SOE).

Using a qualitative method, two rounds of interviews were conducted with 18 participants in two SOEs “to explore Chinese employees” ethical perceptions and experiences in the workplace. A qualitative thematic strategy was adopted to analyze and interpret the data.

The authors identified three major themes on SOE employees ethical decision making in relation to workplace guanxi: the ethical self; malleable ethical standards; and submission to authority. The authors derived a conceptual framework to outline the relationship between the invisible hand of guanxi and the SOE employees' ethical decision making.

The paper contributes to the business ethics literature by presenting a three‐dimensional profile and a conceptual framework for Chinese business ethics research. It provides an in‐depth understanding of a complex dynamics of guanxi and its impact on employees' ethical decision‐making behavior.

In the mid-1970s, China's economy had only two forms of public ownership: state ownership and collective ownership. In the agricultural sector, virtually all production was organized into collectively owned Production Brigades (villages) and People's Communes (townships or groups). In industry, SOEs accounted for 80% of total industrial output, with the remaining 20% shared by urban and rural collectives. By the late 1990s, SOEs and collectives accounted for less than 50% of GDP (International Finance Corporation, 2000; p. 18). Transformation of the ownership of production has undoubtedly been one of the key components of China's successful reform program. This has been achieved through combined efforts: privatization of agricultural production on collectively owned land; new entry of collectively owned industrial enterprises, especially township and village enterprises (TVEs), and their subsequent privatization; new entry of foreign-invested and domestic private enterprises; and ownership transformation of existing SOEs (Mako & Zhang, 2003).

This study aims to investigate and compare the relationships of affective commitment, loyalty to supervisor and guanxi among Chinese workers in joint ventures (JVs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

In the proposed model, job security is considered as an antecedent of affective commitment, and subordinate–supervisor guanxi is viewed as an antecedent of loyalty to supervisor. The model further suggests that affective commitment will affect employees’ turnover intention and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and that loyalty to supervisor will affect employees’ OCB. A data set consisting of 255 employees in three JVs and 253 employees in three SOEs in China is used to test the hypotheses empirically.

The LISREL results support the hypotheses and show the major differences of employees’ attitudes and behaviour in JVs and SOEs today.

This study shows the differences of effects of commitment on OCB in JVs and SOEs and also clarifies the mixed and inconsistent findings of the effects of affective commitment and commitment to supervisor on OCB in the previous literature.

Given that the effects of affective commitment and loyalty to supervisor on OCB are different in JVs and SOEs, different policies should be adopted to enhance the OCB in these two types of organisations.

The research results show the major differences of employees’ attitudes and behaviour in JVs and SOEs today. The comparison of the results has implications to the extant literature.

The privatization of State Owned Enterprises (SOE) has significant implications for SOE stakeholders. However, the effects on stakeholders will vary depending on characteristics of the privatization process and the structure of the SOE. This paper identifies privatization process characteristics of wealth creation and wealth distribution, and describes SOE structures on a continuum between government corporation and government agency. The privatization effectiveness for stakeholders is discussed and examples provided for each classification of privatization.

The purpose of this study is to explore how Indonesian state-owned enterprises (SOEs) select and “manage” employee influencers in order to engage more effectively with younger generations.

The study applies a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative data were obtained by analyzing Instagram content with samples for analysis being taken from company-related posts from June 2018 to June 2020. Qualitative data collection was by two focus group discussions (FGD). The FGDs comprised in total, 22 employee influencers representing the 11 sectors of SOEs in Indonesia.

The article examines how employee influencers engage with others; how they are chosen by their organizations; how they are managed and the support they need from their employers. It was discovered that a careful triangulation is required between employees as influencers, their followers and SOE communication hubs. A key factor is maintaining the authentic relationship between employee influencers and their followers. A conceptual model of employee influencer management for Indonesia is proposed.

The research provides useful insights for communication management, marketing, and human resources in developing and supporting the role of employee influencers.

The research provides useful insights for communication management, marketing and human resources in developing and supporting the role of employee influencers. The suggested model is of practical utility for SOEs for managing employee influencers in Indonesia and provides valuable indicators for other countries.

The study of SOEs’ employee influencers has not been explored previously in the literature. This, combined with the Indonesian perspective, brings new insights to the field. Social media use is especially high in Indonesia, so it acts as a good exemplar for the field. It also builds on the growing literature about the importance of employees as influencer, especially in the social media space. The model also make a theoretical contribution.

This paper aims to evaluate the suggestion that the antecedents of union commitment and participation may differ between foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China based on the view that SOE unions will focus more strongly on the traditional dual role, emphasising on managerial functions and employee welfare.

The paper is based on employee surveys in two enterprises in Shanghai, one FIE and one SOE. Employee attitudes towards the union and enterprise were measured using a self-completion questionnaire, and data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Findings suggest that pro-union attitudes were more salient in the FIE context. In contrast, SOE workers’ allegiance to the union appeared to be a less reflection of pro-union attitudes and was more narrowly instrumental.

The findings suggest that FIEs workers’ union allegiances are more likely to reflect a pro-union orientation, with SOE workers more likely to see their union allegiances in narrowly instrumental terms. In FIEs, with a profit-oriented and privately managed enterprise, union allegiances may be closer to those of Western market economies, whilst in SOEs, the “dual role” model persists, with unions a service provider rather than an independent employee representative.

The findings in this paper provide an initial test of the potential differences in the antecedents of union commitment and participation across FIEs and SOEs. Future research is needed to build on these findings, in particular, adopting multi-enterprise study designs across different enterprise types.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirical evidence on factors that influence performance of state owned enterprises (SOEs). With a focus on power utilities, the paper investigates how such several factors interact with each other to influence ultimate performance.

Data on the SOEs constituting the sample is predominantly obtained from the audited annual financial statements and other publicized reports of entities for a 20-year period spanning from 1994 to 2013. The audited annual financial statements provide quantitative data whilst the rest of qualitative information is available from narratives in the annual reports. The study takes liquidity, board strength, extent of stakeholder presentation on board and government’s involvement in pricing as proxy variables for resource-based agency, stakeholder and public choice theories, respectively. Using performance as the dependent variable, the study variables are modeled in a regression model.

The paper finds that good SOE performance could be explained in terms of the agency and resource-based theories, where the authors found strong boards and good liquidity profiles to be positively related to good performance. A wider stakeholder representation on SOE boards correlates negatively with performance. Similarly, the higher the level of government involvement in the tariff setting process the weaker the performance results. Based on the results, the paper concludes that SOEs performance is underpinned by a plethora of organizational issues: agency, public policy, stakeholder and resource-based issues. These issues must therefore inform the appointment of SOE management and also their performance contracts.

The study suggests that SOE governance structures should be centered around four main unifying themes; agency, stakeholders, resources and shareholder engagement. From an agency perspective, board appointments should first be based on merit and stakeholder representation comes in as a subset. Resources availability should be paired with objective imperatives and engagement with political leadership should be limited to matters of policy through a regulatory and legal framework.

This study provides some practical insights from both an administration and policy perspective. First, it reveals the importance of and a linkage between both adequate resources and strong boards, but also the need to find the right balance in managing stakeholder interests SOEs face. The study does not necessarily support the popular view of completely eliminating government interference in SOE affairs, but rather advances optimal political influence through regulatory and legal frameworks without giving up ownership rights.