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This paper aims to review the state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in China and analyzes the role of the Chinese Government in the progress of the SOE reform. It provides suggestions to better guide the direction of further reforms of the SOEs in China.

This paper reviews the historical path of the SOE reform in China and analyzes the underline policy implication associated with the reform.

The success of the function-oriented SOE reform depends on the transformation of governmental functions. Only with the linkage of governmental functions reform can we change the existing pattern of economic development, build a solid foundation for the socialist market economy and achieve the final triumph.

This paper provides suggestions to better guide the direction of further reforms of the SOEs in China.

This study examines the impact of China’s mixed-ownership reform on the innovation of non-state-owned acquirers, with a particular focus on the impact on firms with high financing constraints, low-quality accounting information or less tangible assets.

We use a proprietary dataset of firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges to investigate the impact of mixed ownership reform on non-state-owned enterprise (non-SOE) innovation. We employ regression analysis to examine the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation.

The study finds that non-state-owned firms can improve innovation by acquiring equity in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the reform. Eased financing constraints, lowered financing costs, better access to tax incentives or government subsidies, lowered agency costs, better accounting information quality and more credit loans are underlying the impact. Additionally, cross-ownership connections amongst non-SOE executives and government intervention strengthen the impact, whilst regional marketisation weakens it.

This study adds to the literature on the association between mixed ownership reform and firm innovation by focussing on the conditions under which this impact is stronger. It also sheds light on the policy implications for SOE reforms in emerging economies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of state ownership on financial reporting quality regarding the characteristics of conservatism and earnings management.

Using a large sample of public and private European firms during the period 2003-2010, the authors test the hypotheses following Ball and Shivakumar’s (2005) model for conservatism and the modified Jones (1991) model proposed by Dechow and Sloan (1995) for earnings management. To ensure that the results are robust, the authors conduct sensitivity analysis with regard to potential endogeneity and selection bias.

The authors find that state-owned firms are less conservative than non-state-owned firms, which is consistent with the idea that there is less need for accounting conservatism due to government protection. The authors also show that capital markets play an important role in shaping the relation between state ownership and earnings management. Among public firms, the authors find that state-owned firms have higher abnormal accruals and worse accruals quality than non-state-owned firms, which suggests that state-owned firms are not immune to capital market pressures.

The study has two limitations. First, as state-owned and non-state-owned firms face quite different incentive structures, management behavior might be determined by factors that have yet to be identified. Second, prior research results suggest an inverted U-shape relation between ownership concentration and earnings management (Ding et al., 2007). It would be interesting to investigate the impact of different levels of state ownership on earnings quality.

As the paper investigates the role of state ownership on earnings quality using a sample of European firms, it brings new insights regarding the role of state ownership in accounting quality and firm performance. In addition, it considers the role of capital markets in the relation between the quality of financial reporting and ownership by considering a sample with both public and private firms.

The study contributes to the debate about state intervention in the corporate sector, by extending the knowledge of the effects of government ownership on earnings quality by using a large sample of European firms. Furthermore, the authors also introduce the effect of capital market forces on managers’ behavior in state-owned and non-state-owned companies by analyzing private and publicly listed firms.

The paper aims to examine how the change in political ideology and institutions affects corporate governance (CG) of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) in Vietnam, as well as its consequences.

To link macro-level institutional change to micro level of the reform process of the Vietnamese SOE governance, we draw from the “Varieties of Capitalism” (VoC) framework adopt a triangulation approach for data collection.

The paper shows the CG of SOEs is a variant of capitalist CG. Changes in the function, state control and structure of governance in the Vietnamese SOEs have been shaped by the political ideology and institution. It also shows that the political and bureaucratic interferences of the state in SOEs are for political interests rather than for firms’ effectiveness.

The political ideology has existed in major aspects of the governance structure of the SOEs as a part of the party’s effort to maintain its economic legitimacy and a government of “control and domination”.

The findings of this study can be seen as a reference for the Vietnamese Government and governments of other developing countries in making incremental improvements in existing institutions rather than choosing the “best” model of CG.

The paper contributes to the literature by applying the VoC framework to analyse the change in SOE governance in a transition country while preserving the communist ideology. It can deepen our understanding of the SOE governance in Vietnam and enrich comparative studies of CG in the transition countries.

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.

The purpose of this chapter is to share the findings of a qualitative case study focusing on international sustainability guidelines’ ‘fit’ at a mega South African state-owned enterprise (SOE). The case study set out to determine if international guidelines developed in the West fit when the home country of the company is in the global South. The case study drew on document analysis and 23 serial interviews with 12 formally employed sustainability champions and the analysis was conducted through applied thematic analysis (ATA) using the computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) Atlas.ti. The case study was conducted at a South African SOE with over 60,000 employees and an average annual revenue of 50 billion Rand. The study found that there were several international sustainability guidelines in use at the SOE and that the guidelines in use were not only a good fit but were valuable to the sustainability champions and the company’s corporate sustainability governance structures. The research is limited in that it is not generalizable; however, it is transferrable to similar contexts.

The study recommends that companies ensure that they adopt guidelines that are appropriate for their organization, industry and the regions wherein they operate and that sustainability guidelines may be particularly useful in promoting corporate sustainability within the organization and establishing sustainability-related governance mechanisms which may be valuable for stakeholders as well. This research demonstrates that companies who engage in international trade are likely to benefit from international sustainability guidelines and reveals unique practices which the company proactively engages into ensure that the guidelines are effectively applied.

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.

This paper builds upon the growing research on both privatization and entrepreneurship and provides a model to predict outcomes of privatization of state‐owned enterprises. Previous research has concentrated on the change in ownership as the principal driver of post‐privatization increases in firm performance and wealth creation. We suggest that structural conditions of the state‐owned enterprise and the privatization process, in combination with characteristics of the new owners, lead to performance changes because they determine the firm’s ability to transform from a state agency to an entrepreneurial organization.

Managing diverse talents has become a necessary part of the human resource management of contemporary organizations. The growing diversity of organizations' workforce makes companies reassess their conventional HRM approaches. State-owned enterprises get the increasing attention of talent management scholars since state firms enthusiastically compete for talents. These companies have some particularities that distinguish them from private firms, and there is a need to analyse the existing research on the HRM in state companies which has the potential to add a missing part to the puzzle of managing diverse talents. We study the major topics in the literature on human resource management and talent management in state-owned enterprises, the key findings researchers provide and the gaps in the literature that need to be covered and the resulting research directions for future studies.

This chapter is intended to provide the reader with information and insights on the transition or transformation from socialism to a market economy in what are generally termed the transition economies. This includes countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), sometimes referred to as the Former Soviet Union (FSU), the South East European (SEE) countries, sometimes referred to as the Balkans and the major socialist economy of Asia, China. The chapter covers the critical years of reform for most of these countries, from 1990 to 2000. Some transition economies started reforming earlier, such as China which has continued state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms to the present time. Other transition countries, primarily the SEE economies, lagged due to the conflict which raged throughout most of the region and the period of isolation which followed, particularly for Serbia. China and Serbia are sui generis for a number of reasons. They will be referenced as examples in this chapter, but they will not form part of the core statistical and data analysis.