Abstract

In the last two decades, the global economy has witnessed the success of Chinese state-owned enterprises and a resurgence of soe s as integral parts of national industrial strategies. However, mainstream theory often fails to grasp the array of different soe typologies and the essence of state entrepreneurship. The purpose of this work is to identify a spectrum of soe s and entrepreneurial ways of running soe s through an international comparative analysis. Anevaluating framework based on the capacity of soe s to be visionary, to return rewards to the state, to achieve social goals, and to be independent is used to evaluate the performance of three soe s: iri , Temasek and öiag . All three companies are State Holding Companies since this type of soe provides the flexibility necessary to follow an entrepreneurial management style. This international comparative analysis highlights that, in order for soe s to be entrepreneurial, they must go beyond fixing market failures and that social goals are not necessarily in opposition to rewards, and to profitability in particular. The state should not just fix market failures, it must create new markets and new paths of development for national economies shc s can be effective tools in achieving these results.