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Twenty Years After: Management and Performance Measurement in Romanian State-Owned Enterprises

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Abstract

In 2011, the economic crisis generated public discussions related to the performance measurement and poor management of state-owned enterprises (SOE) in Romania. The debate revealed the fact that the existence of present SOE, including their creation and strategies, is undermined by an unclear conceptual frame. The study analyzes the theoretical roots of some critical demarcations in the public sector in order to explain the dilemmas or some controversial approaches in the policies regarding the SOEs management. The map of discussions for building the theoretical background of the study takes as main milestones some references related to the issue of public sector demarcations, to the privatization of SOEs and to the organization and management performance appraisals of the SOEs in the specific Romanian context. The methodology of study is tailored to the Romanian context. A collection of case studies and disparate but relevant facts are preferred to statistical tools. They are used to explain a very strange behavior of organizations in this dynamic and theoretically unclear environment. The state of the Romanian public sector is explained first as a result of the national legal context. But the new public sector is also the result of the economic reform, including the privatization after 1990. All these elements triggered some local characteristics of the SOEs management. A representative case for the process of restructuration can be found in the energy sector, with a special significance for the national economy as a “model”. The problems of organizational performance and management appraisal in Romanian SOE are present in discussions using the so-called antimanagement concept. Some facts are brought forth to illustrate the concept.

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Correspondence to Bogdan Băcanu .

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Băcanu, B. (2013). Twenty Years After: Management and Performance Measurement in Romanian State-Owned Enterprises. In: Thomas, A., Pop, N., Bratianu, C. (eds) The Changing Business Landscape of Romania. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6865-3_8

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