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An Empirical Taxonomy of SOE Governance in Transitional China

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Abstract

China’s State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) traditionally have been governed by the Communist Party. Privatization has brought greater numbers of investors who have a stake and demand a voice in how SOEs are managed. Three traditional governance perspectives are agency theory, resource dependence, and institutional theory, but China’s transition introduces several additional governance approaches. Are “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” and “bureaucratic entrepreneurialism” paradoxes? Based on initial interviews of SOE executives, a survey of top managers and board chairs of listed companies, and subsequent interviews and observations in select case companies, this paper develop a taxonomy of SOE governance that now exists in China. Two of the approaches represent the extremes of the old state-centered regimes and the new shareholder-centered regimes. Considering China’s historical and cultural contexts coupled with its current stage of economic transition, two additional approaches to corporate governance are to have a vacuum as neither the state nor shareholders dominate or – in unique contrast to other countries – a hybrid of both.

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Abbreviations

ARBE:

accounting regulations for business enterprises

ASBE:

accounting standards for business enterprises

FIEs:

foreign-invested enterprises

NTCs:

new three committees

OTCs:

old three committees

SMEs:

small and midsize enterprises

SOEs:

state-owned enterprises

TVEs:

township and village enterprises

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 777 Guoding Road, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Jinyang Hua

  2. School of Business, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 12222, USA

    Paul Miesing

  3. Hohai University, Nanjing, China

    Mingfang Li

  4. Xian Jiaotong University, Xian, China

    Mingfang Li

  5. College of Business and Economics, California State University, Northridge, Northridge, CA, 91330-8376, USA

    Mingfang Li

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  1. Jinyang Hua
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  2. Paul Miesing
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  3. Mingfang Li
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Correspondence to Jinyang Hua.

Additional information

Ideas and suggestions were initially provided by Professor Qingrui Xu, the adviser to the primary author’s Ph.D. dissertation research at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China on which this article is based. We are also grateful to the suggestions made by Anna Grandori, Editor-in-Chief of this journal, and two of its anonymous reviewers.

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Hua, J., Miesing, P. & Li, M. An Empirical Taxonomy of SOE Governance in Transitional China. J Manage Governance 10, 401–433 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-006-9008-z

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