| Governments in Business: An Empirical Analysis of the Strategies and Success of Government Linked Corporations in Singapore |
| | Singh, Kulwant | National U. of Singapore | fbaks@nus.edu.sg | (65)874-3134 |
| | Ang, Siah Hwee | National U. of Singapore | fbap6220@nus.edu.sg | (65)874-3143 |
| | Extensive research of state owned enterprises or government linked corporations (GLCs) concludes that these organizations perform poorly relative to profit-oriented organizations. GLCs are believed to reflect anti-competitive tendencies, their existence representing governments' attempts to control or dominate markets. Possibly as a consequence, researchers have not paid sufficient attention to GLCs, despite their importance in many economies such as Singapore's. Unlike state enterprises in many countries, GLCs in Singapore meet competitive standards of operating efficiency and profitability. Though political economists attribute this achievement to the government's effective organization, structure, and management of GLCs, this paper evaluates a complementary explanation for GLCs' success in Singapore: effective corporate strategy. After evaluating GLC performance in Singapore, this paper focuses on common aspects of strategies: achieving consistent profitability, matching industry benchmarks, regionalization, diversification, collaboration, and support for government policies. An understanding of these strategies and their impact on performance adds to our understanding of an important breed of business organization, provides indications of how state enterprises can improve performance, and challenges the view that government participation in business is necessarily inefficient. |
| | Keywords: government corporations; state enterprises; strategy |
| Behavior of Urban Public Authorities Operating in Business-Dominated Markets: Policy Outcomes in Mass Transit |
| | Boschken, Herman L. | San Jose State U. | boschken_h@cob.sjsu.edu | (408) 924-3563 |
| | An old adage has re-emerged in public organization studies which views government agencies as corporate-like in their behavior and policymaking. The new twist in this thesis is the emphasis placed on market competition in determining agency behavior. It holds that market exchange matters as much as the politics of general welfare in determining how policy outcomes are skewed to favor some stakeholders. A form suited to test this thesis is the independent public authority which addresses policymaking from both market-based criteria and politics. Some public authorities emphasize market-worthy outcomes (effective customer satisfaction) which enhance organizational stature while others emphasize social welfare programs. Still others emphasize operational efficiencies. The differences lead to questions. How much do market variables explain differences in public policy emphasis? How much does market competition matter relative to political factors and the socioeconomic milieu? The paper looks comparatively at public authorities operating in markets dominated by private-sector competition, transit agencies competing with the automobile and freeeway system in the urban transportation market. Applying an hypothesis-driven regression analysis to a sample of 42 agencies, the research found that market competition poses significant influence (greater than political or socioeconomic factors) on the patterned bias in policy outcomes. |
| | Keywords: policy outcome ; market competition ; public agency |
| When Missions, Markets, and Politics Collide: Values and Strategy in the Nonprofit Human Services |
| | Frumkin, Peter | Harvard U. | peter_frumkin@harvard.edu | (617)-495-8057 |
| | Andre-Clark, Alice | Harvard U. | alice_andre-clark@harvard.edu | (617)-495-8057 |
| | Nonprofit human service organizations are facing a major new challenge from a growing number of for-profit firms. In the area of welfare to work, these firms now enjoy a number of important advantages over nonprofit organizations, including the ability to raise large amounts of capital quickly, the option of lobbying for contracts, and the capacity to attract and retain the most talented personnel. This paper argues that nonprofits can never win an efficiency battle with for-profit firms in the welfare to work arena. Any attempt to compete with the "new corporate social workers" will lead to an efficiency-driven race to the bottom, which nonprofit organizations are ill equipped to win. Instead, this paper argues that nonprofit organizations need to develop a new strategy grounded in the unique values and commitments that animate nonprofit activity. |
| | Keywords: nonprofit; management; contracting |