Convergence Of Corporate Governance In State-Owned Enterprises: A Case Study In An Emerging Market Using OECD Guidelines

This article investigates an under-researched area of government
activity and corporate governance reform, namely, corporate
governance in state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises (SOEs)
form a significant part of the economy in many countries and
particularly in Asia. This article contributes to the larger corporate
governance convergence debate by investigating whether arrangements
originally conceptualised in the private sector prior to going global
have indeed gone global and extended into the public sector.
The article approaches the problem by investigating three interrelated
questions posed by Clarke (2011): whether convergence could occur,
whether it is occurring and whether such convergence is a good thing.
Using a combination of DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) institutional
framework, convergence theory and doctrinal methods, the article sets
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises as
a benchmark and assesses Philippine state-owned enterprise law and
practices. The analysis revealed a high level of convergence. We find
evidence that convergence was occurring by a series of high-level
dialogues, that it was open and sufficiently non-prescriptive to allow
selective adoption and adaptation to local context. In evaluating
the convergence, we believe that the benefit to the overall welfare of
the Philippines outweighed the drawbacks.