State-Owned Enterprises: Issues of Accountability and Legitimacy

This article seeks to broaden the parameters of the research into and discourse of CSR, which, by definition, has focused on corporations, but has neglected the role of governments as corporate owners. Greater awareness and transparency of corporate ownership should open up discussions of accountability, especially as citizens are arguably the principal shareholders of government-owned companies. These are issues of potential concern to organizational communication scholars. The article first examines the nature and genesis of government-owned corporations, particularly in the New Zealand context, which very much follows the pattern of similar corporations around the world. A case study follows, with extant literature of CSR, legitimacy, and the conventionally regarded relative roles of state and the economy drawn upon to inform discussion of the broader ramifications of the case for other organizational contexts.