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

基本信息

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

项目摘要

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。我的博士论文旨在通过重新评估有关这一主题的大量文献并深入探索此类事件之后变革过程的长期发展，进一步阐明私有化的影响。我的研究通过揭示理论假设与现有研究的实证结果之间的差异，有助于我们对私有化的了解。我展示了不同学科的研究如何显示出对私有化将导致组织绩效改善这一主张的总体不同支持。此外，通过将皇家邮政的私有化理论化为组织身份变革的案例，并揭示组织需要在公共服务和企业之间取得平衡而产生的紧张关系，我为理解组织身份如何形成提供了一个重要的视角私有化组织中的互动。从政策角度来看，本文挑战了我们对公有制与私有制影响的一些普遍看法。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组织私有化决策的可能后果以及以最小化阻力的方式管理随后的转型至关重要。它指出了管理变革所引发的紧张局势所固有的困难，以及尽管管理者尽了最大努力，但组织其他部门的反应方式可能与预期不同的可能性。在这项奖学金中，我计划通过进一步的有限研究来扩展我的论文的见解，解决英国工业战略的重大挑战之一——移动的未来。具体来说，通过对英国私有化铁路行业的研究，我将探讨两个相互关联的研究问题。首先，目的是扩展论文的见解，并探讨铁路公司的哪些业务模式配置与高/低水平的服务质量和绩效相关。其次，通过扩展这些见解，我将探讨这些组织如何进行“混合组织”——成功地将公共服务提供者和商业企业的组织形式结合起来。铁路私有化的批评者认为，其中一些公司失败的原因在于私营公司主要以利润为导向，这与公共服务提供商的目标形成鲜明对比。然而，对社会企业的研究表明，组织可以在追求社会使命的同时，参与维持其运营的商业活动。此类研究认为，社会企业的成功可以通过它们成功地参与“混合组织”这一事实来解释——混合组织的定义是组织理解和组合多种组织形式的活动、结构和流程。尽管社会企业家精神取得了这些发展，但私有化研究和政策制定似乎在混合组织问题上基本上保持沉默——因为它主要基于公共和私人组织形式之间的二分区别。通过这项研究，我建议重新思考私有化，并探讨铁路行业可以从我们对混合组织和社会企业管理的了解中吸取的教训。最后，通过评估和重新思考私有化铁路公司的商业模式，这项研究得出的见解将满足行业战略对商业模式创新的要求，从而帮助解决移动出行的未来。