A Tale of Dvo Metallurgical Enterprises: Marketization and the Social Contract in Russian Industry

Abstract

Students of post-communist labor relations have argued that the social contract would deteriorate with privatization, as managers secured ownership rights and enterprises reoriented toward the market. To examine this expectation, we investigated the state of labor relations in two enterprises in the metallurgical industry. In St Petersburg, marketization brought little positive change in production and the social contract decayed, while Tula's management embarked on an ambitious reform program, rewriting the social contract. We attribute the variations in the outcomes to differing regional conditions that affected the mutual dependence of labor and management and, hence, “exit options” of both parties.

Learning organization in mainland China: empirical research on its application to Chinese state‐owned enterprises

“…Much of the literature on corporate reforms to SOEs of developing countries argues that restructuring SOEs into shareholding corporations will make them more efficient (Baglione and Clark, 1997). Managers of listed companies are expected to be more disciplined since their firm receives greater scrutiny from shareholders and investors.…”

FIZZ, FROTH, FLAT: The Challenge of Converting China's SOEs into Shareholding Corporations

“…hina in the 1990s began converting its state-owned C enterprises (SOEs) into shareholding corporations in an attempt to make them more market-oriented. Much of the literature on corporate reforms to SOEs (Nee & Stark, 1989;Whyte, 1989;Dereli & Zeytinoglu, 1993;Pannier & Schiavo-Campo, 1996;Stark, 1996;Baglione & Clark, 1997) argues that restructuring SOEs into shareholding corporations will make SOEs more efficient. Shareholding SOEs will become more efficient because managers of listed companies become more disciplined as their firms receive greater scrutiny from both shareholders and investors.…”