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Corporate governance and democratic accountability: local state-owned enterprises in Norway

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2019

Jan Erling Klausen Open the ORCID record for Jan Erling Klausen [Opens in a new window]  and
Marte Winsvold
Jan Erling Klausen*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway
Marte Winsvold
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway E-mail: m.s.winsvold@stv.uio.no
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: j.e.klausen@stv.uio.no
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Abstract

Transferring public service provision to state-owned enterprises (SOEs) raises concerns over accountability deficits. We argue that the governance of SOEs requires reconciliation of the accountability relations found in traditional models of public administration, and the normative structures of control and accountability developed in the world of private enterprises, commonly referred to as corporate governance. To this end, we propose a model for structuring accountability relations between SOEs and governmental owners. The model prescribes a distinction between the roles of elected representatives and top managers as “forums” for accountability concerning the governmental owner’s mission-related and non-mission-related preferences towards the SOE. The model’s relevance is tested empirically using data from a study of SOEs in Norway’s local government sector. The analysis indicates that accountability practices in line with the prescriptions of the model were associated with a heightened sense of control over the SOEs.

Keywords

corporate governancedemocratic accountabilitylocal governancelocal governmentstate-owned enterprises
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 161 - 184
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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