Rethinking Privatisations: Exploring the Potential of Hybrid Business Models in the Railway Sector

重新思考私有化：探索铁路行业混合商业模式的潜力

• 批准号: ES/V009354/1
• 负责人: Mislav Radic
• 金额: $ 13.89万
• 依托单位: London School of Economics and Political Science
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV009354%2F1
• 关键词: Rethinking; Privatisations; Exploring; Potential; Hybrid

Privatisation is often is considered as one of the most radical economic policies of the 20th century. My doctoral dissertation aimed at shedding further light on the implications of privatisation by reassessing the vast literature on this topic and exploring in-depth the long-term developments of the change process that followed one such event. My research contributes to our knowledge about privatisations by revealing the discrepancy between theoretical assumptions and empirical findings of existing research. I show how research across different disciplines showed overall mixed support for the proposition that privatisation will lead to improvements in organisational performance. Also, by theorizing the privatisation of Royal Mail as a case of organisational identity change, and revealing the tensions that arise from the organisations need to balance between being a public service and being a business, I add an important perspective in understanding how organisational identities shape interactions in privatised organisations. From a policy perspective, the dissertation challenges some of our commonly held assumptions on the implications of public vs. private ownership. It provides compelling evidence that an organisational understanding of privatisations is crucial for assessing the likely consequence of the decisions to privatise an organisation, and for managing the ensuing transition in a way that minimizes resistance. It points to the difficulties inherent in managing tensions unleashed by the change, and to the possibility that, despite managers' best efforts, the rest of the organisation will respond in ways that differ from what expected. In this fellowship, I plan to expand the insights from my dissertation by pursuing further limited research, addressing one of the grand challenges the UK's industrial strategy - the future of mobility. Specifically, by conducting research on the UK's privatized railway industry, I will explore two interrelated research questions. First, the aim is to expand the insights of the dissertation and explore which business model configurations of railway companies are associated with high/low levels of service quality and performance. Second, by expanding on these insights, I will explore how these organisations can engage in "hybrid organising"- successfully combining the organisational forms of public service providers and commercial enterprises. Critics of railway privatisation have argued that the reason for the failures of some of these companies arises from the fact that private companies are primarily profit-driven, which is in direct contrast of the goals of a public service provider. However, research on social enterprises has shown that organisations can pursue a social mission while simultaneously engaging in commercial activities that can sustain their operations. Such research has argued that the success of social enterprises could be explained through the fact they successfully engage in "hybrid organising" -defined as the activities, structures, and processes by which organisations make sense of and combine multiple organisational forms. Despite these developments in social entrepreneurship, privatisation research and policy making seems to be to be largely silent on issues on hybrid organising - as it is largely based on a dichotomous distinction between public and private organisational forms. With this research I propose a rethinking of privatisations, and explore the lessons the railway industry can learn from what we know about hybrid organising and the management of social enterprises. Finally, by assessing and rethinking the business model of privatized railway companies, the insights derived from this research will answer the industrial strategies call for innovation in business models in order to help in addressing the future of mobility.

私有化通常被认为是20世纪最激进的经济政策之一。我的博士学位论文旨在进一步阐明私有化的含义，通过重新评估有关该主题的大量文献，并深入探讨了发生在此类事件之后的变化过程的长期发展。我的研究通过揭示了现有研究的理论假设和经验发现之间的差异，从而有助于我们对私有化的知识。我展示了跨不同学科的研究如何表明对私有化将导致组织绩效改善的主张的总体混合支持。同样，通过将皇家邮政作为组织身份变化的私有化的理论化，并揭示组织所需的紧张局势，需要在成为公共服务和企业之间取得平衡，我添加了一个重要的观点，以了解组织身份如何塑造私有化组织中的互动。从政策的角度来看，论文挑战了我们对公共所有权和私有制的含义的一些普遍假设。它提供了令人信服的证据，表明组织对私有化的理解对于评估决定组织私有化的决定的可能后果至关重要，并以最小化抵抗力的方式管理随后的过渡。它指出了管理变更释放的紧张局势所固有的困难，并且有可能，尽管经理们尽了最大的努力，组织的其余部分将以与预期的方式不同的方式做出响应。在这一奖学金中，我计划通过进行进一步的有限研究来扩大论文的见解，以解决英国工业战略的巨大挑战之一 - 流动性的未来。具体来说，通过对英国私有铁路行业进行研究，我将探讨两个相互关联的研究问题。首先，目的是扩大论文的见解，并探索铁路公司的哪些业务模型配置与高/低的服务质量和性能相关联。其次，通过扩展这些见解，我将探讨这些组织如何从事“混合组织” - 成功地结合了公共服务提供商和商业企业的组织形式。铁路私有化的批评者认为，其中一些公司失败的原因是私人公司主要是利润驱动的事实，这与公共服务提供商的目标直接形成鲜明对比。但是，对社会企业的研究表明，组织可以同时从事社会任务，同时从事可以维持其运营的商业活动。这样的研究认为，社会企业的成功可以通过成功地从事“混合组织”的事实来解释，并将其定义为组织，结构和过程，通过这些活动，结构和过程，通过这些活动，结构和过程，组织有意义并结合了多种组织形式。尽管社会企业家精神方面有这些发展，但私有化研究和政策制定似乎在很大程度上对混合组织的问题保持沉默 - 因为这主要基于公共和私人组织形式之间的二分法区别。通过这项研究，我提出了对私有化的重新思考，并探索铁路行业可以从我们对混合组织组织和社会企业管理的了解中学习的课程。最后，通过评估和重新思考私有铁路公司的业务模型，从这项研究中获得的见解将回答工业策略，要求在业务模型中进行创新，以帮助解决流动性的未来。

项目成果

Privatization: Implications of a Shift from State to Private Ownership

• DOI: 10.1177/0149206320988356
• 发表时间: 2021-02
• 期刊: Journal of Management
• 影响因子: 13.5
• 作者: Mislav Radić;Davide Ravasi;K. Munir