ABSTRACT
State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are formally and legally accountable to many stakeholders, such as their owner, sector-specific regulators or unions. These relationships have been probed in many studies on SOEs, but they are just one part of the environment in which SOEs are embedded. Research on the accountability of private and public organizations has shown that stakeholders without legal standing raise demands vis-à-vis SOEs. This chapter shows that one important channel for legal and nonlegal stakeholders to influence SOEs is public opinion. The relationship between public opinion and SOEs has been rarely analysed in literature thus far. Therefore, this chapter links general literature on public opinion with the particularities of SOEs. First, the chapter shows why public opinion matters for SOEs. Second, the chapter looks at the formation of public opinion on SOEs, with a particular focus on the role of stakeholders. Third, the chapter presents a typology of how SOEs react to pressures coming from public opinion. In sum, the chapter shows that it is worth analysing the relationship between public opinion and SOEs to enhance our understanding of contemporary SOEs.
