Introduction In recent years,both the number of countries and the degree to which each country has p rivatised its public business sector as well as the economic importance of the privatisation process and its scope have provided an impetus for research in this field..Furthemore,firms with a sufficiently consolidated history of privatisation are now available to researchers to help them conduct more relevant studies.
Most empirical studies conducted on privatisation have used two different approaches to analyse corporate performance and evalute is efficiency:on the one hand,there are comparative studies that use a cross-sectional analysis of public and private firms that are all operating on the market at the same moment in time;and on the other hand,there are case studies that use a longitudinal analysis of the before and after of a privatisation to analyse the evolution of performance in on sole firm during its different stages of public or private ownership.
Objectives and Theoretical Propositions
This study’s primary objective is to explore the changes in strategic management that take place after a public firm is privatised.To do so ,we deduce a series of theoretical propositions related to the relevant factors behind the changers,review the degree of coincidence between the theoretical propositions and behaviorurs of the firms analyse,determine whether a common behaviour pattern among the exists and finally,propose a global theoretical model that makes it easier to analyse the changes in strategic management that occur after a public firm has been privatised.
Strategies:
A strategic reflection planning model changes as a result of corporate privatisation and moves towards less formal expoitions and more flexible and shared approaches in which emerging,prospective and exploratory strategies shift delibrate,defensive and reactive ones.As opperate to deliberate strategies
We understand emerging strategies to be those that are not the result of pursuing a formal strategic planning process,but rather”emerge”from any of the process phases without the process necessarily having been completed.
Furthermore,in comparison to when they were publically owned,firms that have been privatised are more inclined to establish cooperation agreements or strategic alliances with other firms and diversification and internationalisation strategies for their own perations.Thus,we can assume that companies will face more competitive environments after privatisation and be forced to enter into more cooperation agreements to reach new markets and organise corporate operations.
Public companies are generally less open to foreign operations,measured in terms of both the relative weight of imported inputs used in all as well as the number of importing companies and percentage of companies that export part of their production and their volume relative to total sales.Nevertheless,this is comtradicted in the case of the manufacturing industry:public manufacturing firms are more open to foreign trade.
Furthemore,public companies have a very limited autonomy in the realm of management and are not usually authorised to diversify production in accordance with opportunities offered by economic conditions.In this sense,Cuervo and Villalonga indicated that when the conditioning political factors of public companies disaapear after pricatisation,the can be expected to exten the scope of their activities in both their geographical as well as product markets.
Moreover,Millward and Parker and Cuervo indecated that a lesser differentiation among products is characteristic of public firms’behaviour.
Objectives
Public firms’objectives are multiple,ambiguous and potentially contradictory.They are difficult to quantify and vague,because they must make economic performance compatible with social benefits and even the political interests of the party in power achievement is hard to quantify,since finding indicators to measure the degree of fulfilment is not a simple task.Along these lines.Fernadez,Romero and Vazquez indicated some of the objectives imposed,such as particular zone`s standard of living or promoting activities considered strategic.
Hence,we can consider hat privatised companies`general objectives are more clearly defined and easily measured than before privatisation.
Methodology
To confirm the propositions posed we used contemporary multiple case studies as a research methodology with an essentially inductice and partially deductive scientific approach.
The empirical study`s scientific approach is:fundamentally,andalytical induction through the replication logic with which one seeds to establish general laws from the experience of particular cases;and partially deductive,since deductive processes may be generated to the degree in which they are based on the theoretical propositions previously obtained from the review of theories,which are empicically verified.
Conclusions
The ten basic theroretical propositions formulated in the different areas under study cover potential relevant factors in the process of change in a privatised firm`s strategic management.
Most of the theoretical propositions posed were confirmed or tend towards confirmation,according to the evidence shown by the firms in the sample.
We conclude by indicating two linitations in the reaearch.In the first place,it is not possible to draw any type of statistical inference to generalise the results.
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