ABSTRACT
The need for an operational definition of public enterprise is obvious in a wide range of circumstances. The usual phrasing of definitions in terms of ‘majority ownership or control’ on the part of the public has to be re-appraised in the light of these observations. Difficulties exist in operationalising the ‘enterprise’ component of the definition also. Conceptually it is featured by ‘viability’ by intention through the price-cost basis. The proportion might move above or it from time to time in the case of certain enterprises; so that they become enterprises in some years and non-enterprises in others. The sales-revenue-cost-proportion criterion raises two further problems, from the conceptual angle. By itself it does not say much about the price-cost basis of enterprise operations. A public enterprise may be understood to be an activity in which the majority ownership and/or control is non-private and which is intended to be viable through sales activity on the basis of price-cost relationships.
