Role and Performance of Public Enterprises: A Case Study on the Strategic Relevance and Specificity of Enterprises at the German Federal Level

Abstract

The public sector has continually faced reforms, modernizations and institutional changes. For the special case of Germany, empirical studies illustrate a high relevance of public enterprises (PEs) for fulfilling public purposes and providing public services. An increasing pressure for effectiveness and efficiency of PEs implicates (new) requirements for analytical procedures to review public tasks in general, but also for making best institutional choices. Based on the concepts of a critical review of tasks and an in‐depth performance analysis as well as legal obligations, three major PEs at the federal level are systematically analysed according to their strategic relevance and specificity. However, the study provides a mixed picture. Requirements for the explanation of the public interest of the analysed PEs are not sufficiently met. The paper provides a conceptual framework to assess the role and performance of PEs as well as promising results and further implications, both for researchers and practitioners.

The Response of State‐owned Enterprises to Import Competition: Evidence From Chinese Manufacturing Firms

“…As noted recently by Warm et al. (), SOEs broadly ‘have remained resilient and still exist to fulfil public purposes and to provide public services’. Certainly SOEs are expected not only to achieve certain policy‐related goals, i.e.…”

Institutional Differentiation of Public Service Provision in Germany: Corporatisation, Privatisation and Re-Municipalisation

“…the extent of the exclusivity of public resources which are necessary for the provision of services compared to an alternative use of resource) and the cost-effectiveness of task performance by comparing production costs and transaction costs (e.g. for contract initiation, coordination and monitoring) of different institutional arrangements 4 should be taken into consideration (Warm et al 2018). Taking these fundamentals of institutional economics into account, there is-as mentioned above-a wide range of organisational options for the provision of public services, namely corporatisation, outsourcing, privatisation and re-municipalisation.…”