State-Owned Enterprises as Institutional Actors: Rethinking the Paradox of Embedded Agency Across Capitalisms

In this book we qualify the common understanding of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) as mere instruments of the state and instead conceive of them as economic actors in their own right. Specifically, SOE top management teams (TMT) have leeway to diverge from goals that the state they are owned by pursues. Through ‘institutional work’ they can even actively shape the institutional framework in which they are embedded. However, the extent of SOE TMT’s leeway for agency is determined by macro- (country), meso- (State-SOE governance system), and industry-level factors. These factors, in turn, vary from country to country and over time. In other words, SOE TMT agency is ‘embedded agency.’ Combining institutional work and historical institutionalism analytic lenses, this book presents a multilevel model to understand embedded agency of TMTs of SOEs in contemporary capitalism. Our model adds an important element to our understanding of the "new state capitalism".