Reframing privatisation: Deconstructing the myth of efficiency

Letza, Steve; Smallman, Clive; Sun, Xiuping

doi:10.1023/b:olic.0000048530.30139.98

Cited by 42 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Moreover, while privatisation's 'benefits' are questionable, many theorists (Bond 2003;Diokno-Pascual 2003;Ellwood 2003;George 2003;Hall 2003;New Internationalist 2003;Pollock 2003) maintain that the policy can often bring with it many disadvantages; namely price inflation, excessive executive compensation, tax avoidance and evasion, under-valuation of an entity's network, raised costs in search of profits, publicly leveraged buy-outs of private firms, workforce pay reduction and redundancy, subsidised operation of privatised enterprise, inability of low income earners to purchase basic services due to price increases, exploitation of market power, loss of public accountability, protectionism, corruption, and bribery. In worse cases the scenario can be even more pronounced: activities such as asset stripping, as in the case of Irish Telecommunications provider, Eircom (Sweeney 2004), and insider loans and trading have been seen (Akram 2003;New Internationalist 2003;Letza et al 2004). A strong body of research suggests a deviation from the dominant orthodoxy of privatisation as a function of market adhesion, which Clarke (1994) describes as having "swept through the world" since the early 1980s, especially in the advanced OECD countries.…”

Section: The Ideology Of Privatisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing Privatisation: The Dominance of Neoliberal Discourse and the Death of the Public Good

Silke

Graham

2017

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This paper looks at the privatisation of Bórd Gáis Éireann (BGÉ) in 2014 and the treatment of this issue by the mainstream print media in Ireland. From a contextual perspective, this privatisation came in the wake of the global economic recession and its longer-term implications for Ireland. The media's coverage of the sale was not found to be impartial: both the volume and thrust of the articles were inclined to portray privatisation in a favourable, noncritical light. The majority of content was presented within Neoliberal frames, with a competitive frame being dominant; in other words, the topic was treated from a market or business perspective rather than the perspective of the public good or wider society. A consistent source bias was also found favouring business or market interests with almost no representation of workers or civil society. Theoretically the paper argues that the framing of privatisation as a business and consumer issue, rather than a political one or that of the public good, acts to detract from the political aspects of the appropriation of public assets by international capital, including the implications for infrastructure, economic development and accountability to democratic structures, none of which receive sufficient journalistic attention.

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Section: The Ideology Of Privatisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Framing Privatisation: The Dominance of Neoliberal Discourse and the Death of the Public Good

Silke

Graham

2017

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“…As Alexandre and Charreaux (2004), assert contextual, organisational, governance and strategic variables positively influence privatization results. Indeed, efficiency is not solely a matter of ownership, but social and commercial variables also intervene (Letza et al, 2004). Villalonga (2000) analyzes the influence of political and organisational factors on the efficiency of Spanish SOEs.…”

Section: Previous Literature and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The firms are statistically more efficient according to the ratio of sales to employees, but there are no differences in the other ratio. The human resources policy is one of the most important management policies (Letza et al, 2004) and this result can be explained by labour-force adjustment plans made by privatised companies to increase the company's efficiency. There are no significant changes in the companies for the EBIT, labour ratio and leverage.…”

Section: Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Testmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Privatization on Economic Performance in European Companies

Bachiller¹

2012

Journal Des Economistes Et Des Etudes Humaines

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The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of privatization on the performance of firms by using a panel data set of 38 companies that were privatized in Europe. We compare the profit, profitability, total product, operating efficiency, net income, employment, leverage and risk of these SOEs before and after their privatization. The legal environment, regulation, goals of privatization and competition characterize each sector, which is why we split the total sample into sectors. Our results indicate that the performance of companies in the utility industry is significantly better after privatization; however, we cannot assert this for the other sectors.

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“…The objective of this 'public management for all seasons' (Hood, 1991, p. 3) is generally to improve efficiency (Letza, Smallman, & Sun, 2004), but other motives, like accountability, are also often listed. Also, its introduction is in many cases associated with political ideologies arguing for a slim public sector.…”

Section: Background: Critical Infrastructures Societal Safety and Npmmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Commoditization of Societal Safety

Almklov¹,

Antonsen²

2010

Contingencies & Crisis Mgmt

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New public management has led to major institutional changes in the sectors operating critical infrastructures. The previously integrated utility companies have been dismantled and are now run, regulated and organized more like private entities. This paper proposes two concepts that may aid the analysis of these organizational changes and the consequences they may have on societal safety. Commoditization refers to the process where work is sought transformed into atomistic standardized products to be ordered on a market. Modularization refers to the creation of discrete entities coordinated by market mechanisms and standardized interfaces. We argue that commoditization of work and modularization of organizational entities pose challenges to some of the informal characteristics of high-reliability organization's, with recognized importance especially for crisis management. This is illustrated by examples from Norwegian electricity network operators.

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Reframing privatisation: Deconstructing the myth of efficiency

Cited by 42 publications

References 67 publications

Framing Privatisation: The Dominance of Neoliberal Discourse and the Death of the Public Good

Framing Privatisation: The Dominance of Neoliberal Discourse and the Death of the Public Good

The Impact of Privatization on Economic Performance in European Companies

The Commoditization of Societal Safety

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