The Future of Public Enterprises: Perspectives From the Canadian Experience

Abstract

Public enterprises have been an integral part of the involvement of the state in the economy for most of the 20th century. After 1980, privatization has been the dominant trend until the 2008-2010 economic crisis when new nationalizations happened.Ownership is only an element of a complex system of relations between a public enterprise and its institutional environment where the role of the board of directors, the mechanisms of coordination, the role of senior civil servants, etc. come to play. Using the Canadian experience with public enterprises, we suggest in this article that public enterprises could be interesting economic policy instruments in the future as in the past if such an economic policy exists. In other words, privatization did not solve the control issue over many large enterprises. Improved corporate governance should be considered. This article aims at improving the understanding of how by focusing on various aspects of the governance of public enterprises on their potential use and work. In Canada, public enterprises have been used to face the recent global crisis but they also come from a long tradition of intervention in the economy, a tradition closer to the European than the American. After reviewing recent developments in their governance, paths for future research are proposed. El futuro de las empresas públicas: perspectivas a partir de la experiencia canadienseLas empresas públicas han sido parte integrante de la implicación del Estado en la economía durante la mayor parte del siglo XX. Después de 1980, la privatización ha sido la tendencia dominante hasta la actual crisis económica 2008-2010, a partir de la cual se ha procedido a nuevas nacionalizaciones. La propiedad es sólo un elemento más de un sistema complejo de relaciones entre una empresa pública y su entorno institucional, donde el papel del consejo de administración, los mecanismos de coordinación, la misión de los altos funcionarios, etc., entran en juego. La investigación se basa en la experiencia de empresas públicas canadienses y pretende mostrar que las mismas podrían ser * The author would like to thank Patrick Gauthier and Luc Farinas for their help in preparing this article that was made possible by a grant of the FQRSC to study the governance of collective enterprises under the direction of Marie Bouchard of l'UQAM. The comments by the anonymous reviewers were also very helpful to improve this paper, thanks also to them.

Linking Two Worlds? Entrepreneurial Orientation in Public Enterprises: A Systematic Review and Research Agenda

“…Accordingly, public enterprises face many of the same challenges as private‐sector organizations, such as competition (Luke and Verreynne ; Rentsch and Finger ). The literature largely ignores explicit connections to entrepreneurship; however, contemporary public enterprises are part of the research stream evolving from public entrepreneurship (Bernier ). This research stream remains concentrated on academic institutions or government organizations, and thus largely ignores public enterprises (Bernier ).…”

“…Today, the phenomenon of the public enterprise works in a very different world than that in which it was created (Bernier ). It competes in liberalized markets with other enterprises (Rentsch and Finger ) and is more profit‐driven than in the past (Luke and Verreynne ; Bernier ).…”

“…). As a result, entrepreneurship is indispensable, especially since public enterprises are asked to make profits as if they operate in the private sector (Bernier ). Unfortunately, research on corporate entrepreneurship has primarily been conducted in the private‐sector context (Kearney et al.…”

Policy Adrift: Canadian Crown Corporations in the 21st Century

“…At the provincial level, Crowns had also been important instruments of development (Young et al. , Bernier ). By the 1980s, 233 Crown corporations had been created by the provinces (Vining and Botterell : 363).…”

Public enterprises in the healthcare sector – a case study of Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Greenwich, England

“…If public enterprises are operating successfully then is privatisation necessary? Bernier (2011) argues that governments should attempt to reform the governance of public enterprises rather than privatise them.…”