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The Visible Hand of corporate entrepreneurship in state-owned enterprises: a longitudinal study of the Spanish National Postal Operator

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Abstract

This study explores how the corporate entrepreneurship (CE) of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) evolves under varying conditions of state ownership and control, laws and norms, and competence in the market. For this purpose, we present a longitudinal case study focused on the Spanish postal operator Correos using qualitative archival data and interviews. Our results indicate that the willingness and capacity of an SOE to act entrepreneurially depends critically on its degree of autonomy from the state and on the extent to which its legal and market environments increase its dynamism, complexity, and hostility. We also show that the development of CE in an SOE may lead to improved service quality, operational efficiency, and business specialization; facilitate its market positioning; and foster its sustainability through the exploration and exploitation of strategic alliances that can increase its business scope.

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Notes

  1. Correos website: https://www.correos.com/grupo-correos/#cifras-clave.

  2. The Annual Reports for the years 1987–1991, 1993–1995, and 2006–2007 were unavailable.

  3. Since 1960, private companies in Spain could deliver intra-city mail (Decree 1113/1960).

  4. The UPS was defined in resolution C 103/1999, as approved by the XXII Congress of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) that took place in Beijing in 1999. UPS was defined as “the permanent provision of a postal service of specified quality at all points in their territory at affordable prices for all users” (Directive 97/67/EC art. 3), including the services in Table 3. All UPU member countries must guarantee UPS access to all its citizens and designate the operator/s responsible for its provision (Correos in Spain).

  5. Urban mail services and freight transport were never included in the postal monopoly.

  6. The growing number of small, private couriers that operated intra-city mail and inter-city delivery of parcels since the late 1970s also demonstrated the emergence of a new market niche for higher value-added services (“Empresas de Transporte Urgente,” La Revista de SEUR, n. 1, 1983, p. 4; Interview with External Informant 2, March 10, 2011).

  7. Indeed, as mentioned in Correos’ annual reports, the state acknowledged that Correos’ business should be limited to basic postal services, and that the supply of higher value-added services (e.g., parcel and express mail) absorbed too many resources, thereby hindering the provision of postal mail as a public service, as intended.

  8. Interview with External Informant 2 (March 10, 2011) and External Informant 3 (February 15, 2011). Between 1988 and 1990, the market share of Correos in the parcel segment dropped from 18% to only 2% (“Correos pierde la carrera del tiempo. Un servicio postal en quiebra sucumbe ante la competencia privada,” La Vanguardia, Revista, May 6, 1991, p. 2).

  9. Law 31/1990 issued on December 27 for the state’s general budgets for 1991 created the autonomous organization, Correos y Telégrafos, with the basic functions of managing the public services of mail, telecommunications, and money orders, in addition to the issuance of stamps and other activities related to communications. A year later, through a royal decree approving its bylaws, the new organization was created with effect on January 1, 1992.

  10. The antecedents of this change are in the Law of Organization and Operation of the General Administration of the State (LOFAGE) of 1997, which ended the existence of autonomous organisms of commercial character and created a new figure within the administration of the state—the public business entity—an organization with a differentiated public juridical personality, its own independent assets and treasury, and management autonomy.

  11. Refer to Article 42.1, Law 6/1997 on April 14 regarding the organization and operation of the General State Administration, Boletín Oficial del Estado (BOE) [Official State Gazette] N. 90, of 04/15/1997. The new postal statute was published in the BOE on February 20, 1998.

  12. At this time, Correos had only one service specialized in express parcel, Postal Exprés, launched in 1981.

  13. In 1998 the basic line still accounted for 72% of Correos’ total business volume (Correos, Annual Report 1998).

  14. Interview with External Informant 1 (February 15, 2011).

  15. Interview with External Informant 2 (March 10, 2011) and External Informant 3 (February 15, 2011).

  16. The first wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Europe started in 1998, coinciding with the first European directive published in 1997. The main European postal operators, headed by Deutsche Post, The Post, Austrian Post, and Royal Mail, performed most of these M&As. The second wave of acquisitions (more moderate) took place after the publication of the second European directive in 2002 (ITA Consulting and WIK Consult 2009).

  17. Interview with the deputy vice principal of Chronoexprés, reported in Abrecartas, n.55, May–June 2011, pp. 34–35; Interview with the General Director of Chronoexprés, reported in Mas Cerca, n. 7, summer 2004, p. 18. In 2003, courier, express, and parcel deliveries represented around 76% of the total volume of the Spanish postal market (Spanish Ministry of Public Works 2004).

  18. The acquisition was widely disclosed by the press. See, for instance, “Correos compra el 100 por cien de Servipack,” Correos press report, July 27, 2002; “Correos creará una empresa de paquetería,” La Vanguardía, August 17, 2002.

  19. Several press articles discuss the alliance with KPG: “Correos gana peso internacional con Kahala,” Abrecartas, n. 42, October 2008, pp. 4–7; “KPG, un acto de calidad y competitividad,” Abrecartas, n. 36, June 2007, pp. 4–7; “Los Correos Públicos se unen para luchar con UPS y TNT,” Expansión, August 7, 2007. Interview with the Director of the international division of Correos, reported in Abrecartas, n. 36, June 2007, p. 7.

  20. Interview with the General Director of Chronoexprés, reported in Abrecartas, n. 54, March–April 2011, pp. 16–17.

  21. The creation of Correos as a State-Owned Corporation was previously authorized by Law 14/2000 of December 29, on Fiscal, Administrative, and Social Order Measures, and approved by the Council of Ministers at the meeting held on June 22, 2001. The company was endowed with an initial capital of 563,440,000 euros and maintained certain peculiarities that differentiated it from other SOEs in Spain: all capital is public, a large part of its staff retains its status as civil servants, and it has a double social purpose that encompasses both the provision of public service (the UPS) and other activities subject to market opportunities (Escribano et al. 2003).

  22. According to the Spanish INE (National Statistics Institute), in 2001, there were 6191 companies operating in the Spanish postal industry, most of them of a small and medium size. The Spanish companies SEUR and MRW and the German DHL led the express segment and controlled above 25% of the market. The creation of the Spanish company Unipost in 2001 marked the creation of Correos’ first competitor in the postal mail segment.

  23. Interview with the deputy director of engineering and maintenance services, reported in Abrecartas, n. 58, January–February 2012, pp. 4–5.

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Data availability (data transparency)

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Spanish Library of the Postal and Telegraphic Museum (Madrid, Spain).

Funding

This study was funded by Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), through project PGC2018–093971-B-I00.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law and Business, Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain

    Águeda Gil-López

  2. Faculty of Economics and Business, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

    Unai Arzubiaga

  3. Department of Applied & Structural Economics, & History, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain

    Elena San Román

  4. Centre for Family Business Management, Free University of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy

    Alfredo De Massis

  5. Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK

    Alfredo De Massis

Authors
  1. Águeda Gil-López
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  2. Unai Arzubiaga
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  3. Elena San Román
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  4. Alfredo De Massis
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Correspondence to Unai Arzubiaga.

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Gil-López, Á., Arzubiaga, U., Román, E.S. et al. The Visible Hand of corporate entrepreneurship in state-owned enterprises: a longitudinal study of the Spanish National Postal Operator. Int Entrep Manag J 18, 1033–1071 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11365-020-00700-y

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