Major Public Enterprises in Austria

Dorothea Greiling (), Thomas Kostal () and Gabriel Obermann ()
Additional contact information
Dorothea Greiling: Institute for Management Accounting, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria
Thomas Kostal: Institute for Public Sector Economics, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU-Vienna University of Economics and Business), Austria
Gabriel Obermann: Institute for Public Sector Economics, Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU-Vienna University of Economics and Business), Austria

No 1605, CIRIEC Working Papers from CIRIEC - Université de Liège

Abstract: This study focuses on 10 major public enterprises in Austria, which is a country with a long tradition of nationalized industries. The public owner of all 10 enterprises included in this study is the Federal Republic of Austria. In line with the study objectives of the CIRIEC research project on the development of large public enterprises after the 2008/2009 financial crises, this study presents first hand results on the performance of the selected Austrian public enterprises for the years from 2008 to 2014. These results are analyzed in order to evaluate how the recent financial crisis affected public enterprises. Subsequently, a section on the public enterprises’ governance structures is included. It is shown that Austria is a country with a long tradition of political appointments of members of the management and supervisory boards. Furthermore, this study provides an overview on the public mission statements and service obligations of the enterprises under review in order to provide some insights about today’s justifications of public ownership and future perspectives on the provision of public services. For companies providing services of general interest (energy and water supply, public transport, postal services, etc.) the public mission is obvious and widely accepted; the State has a strong position relying on majority rights or at least blocking power. For companies operating in a national and/or an international competitive environment there is no urgent need or convincing argument for public ownership; therefore these enterprises are, in principle, prone to privatization. Considering the future of the major public enterprises and their respective public mission, the present political discourse in Austria shows no signs that the State will significantly change or even abandon its role as shareholder. Moreover, there seems to prevail a widely old attitude that, for the largest and strategically most important public enterprises, the property rights should not be transferred to private or foreign investors entirely.

Keywords: Governance; deregulation; nationalized industries; performance; privatization; public enterprises; public mission; public ownership; services of general interest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-05
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crc:wpaper:1605

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