The Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was one of the most representative and important turning points in China's history, which brought the focus of national development back to socialist modernization and opened the transformation of China's market economy. The center of reform is concentrated on the most important, but also weakest, area of China's socialist economic system – the state-owned enterprises.
One of the serious shortcomings of China's economic management system is the excessive concentration of power." In order to solve the problem of the lack of corporate vitality caused by the concentration of power, China at that time tried to put autonomy in the hands of enterprises for the first time. This bold and wise choice kicked off the reform of China's state-owned enterprises.
Since 1978, some provinces, including Sichuan, have begun to select some state-owned enterprises to carry out pilot projects to expand their autonomy, and China's economic system has gradually changed from a "planned economy" to a "market economy". This phase of "decentralization and profit" lasted about 15 years, with the focus on state-owned enterprises.
The purpose is to expand the right of state-owned enterprises to operate independently, and to enhance the enthusiasm, creativity, and initiative of the managers of state-owned enterprisesIt is necessary to guide state-owned enterprises to establish a modern enterprise system and adapt themselves to market competition. During this period, the legitimacy of the private economy was gradually recognized and became a major source of power for China's economic development, while the joint ventures and cooperative activities of state-owned enterprises and other enterprises were also increasing, and the mixed ownership system began to take shape.
However, in stark contrast to the booming private economy in the same period, the plan to revitalize state-owned enterprises has not been successfully realized, because the operating mechanism of state-owned enterprises is difficult to convert, lacks self-sustaining ability, cannot adapt to the market mechanism, and the influence of non-economic factors such as politics exceeds the economic law, and the soft budget constraints reduce the incentive for state-owned enterprises to improve their performance.
At the same time, enterprises are still subject to state intervention, and local ** barriers have risen, which has led to the difficulties of many state-owned enterprises participating in the reform。Market-oriented reforms have been controversial since they were proposed, and these voices of opposition have hindered China's move towards a market economy.
In 1993, the Third Plenary Session of the 14th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to establish a modern enterprise system with "clear property rights, clear rights and responsibilities, separation of government and enterprises, and scientific management", and put forward the concept of "mixed ownership of property" for the first time, which promoted the development of a mixed ownership economy characterized by the shareholding system under the conditions of market economy.
The reform of state-owned enterprises has opened a new stageDuring this period, "grasping the big and letting go of the small" became the core concept of the reform of state-owned enterprises, and the state-owned enterprises implemented strategic reorganization and diversified the shareholding structure。In the following ten years, under the correct leadership of the state-owned enterprises, the state-owned enterprises realized independent operation, self-responsibility for profits and losses, self-development, and self-restraint, and the burden was reduced, which promoted the survival of the fittest in state-owned enterprises and realized the overall turnaround.
This practice goes beyond the basis of "delegating power and giving profits" and the management contract responsibility system, so that state-owned enterprises really begin to break away from the intervention of the market and be supervised by the market. In this process, the first step is gradually decentralized, the vitality of enterprises has been released, and the inefficiency of the original state-owned enterprises has been reversed to adapt to the new stage of economic transformation.
The "retreat of the country and the advancement of the people" have promoted economic development. Since the state-owned economy can shoulder the heavy responsibility of national development, why is there a problem of inefficiency?In this regard,Most of the academics have put forward theoretical explanations from two perspectives: political view and manager view
Proponents of the political outlook believe that having actual control over state-owned enterprises and using state-owned enterprises to achieve economic planning or political goals intervenes in the operation and management of enterprises, resulting in the inability of enterprises to optimize the allocation of resources from their own interestsScholars who support the managerial view point out that the existence of information asymmetry leads to the lack of incentives and supervision of managers in state-owned enterprises, which leads to moral hazard and opportunistic behavior.
No matter from the perspective of politics or managers, we can get the conclusion that restructuring can promote the upgrading of state-owned enterprises。From a political point of view, state-owned enterprises lack autonomy, cannot maximize profits as the business goal, and the mode of production violates China's comparative advantages, so they do not have the ability to survive and need state support.
Although state-owned enterprises can survive, they cannot choose an input structure that is more suitable for local survival, and cannot freely allocate production resources, so the ability to make profits and improve performance is insufficient, the rate of capital accumulation declines, and this long-term production mode that violates comparative advantages will bring risks such as a decline in the proportion of added value, which is not conducive to the upgrading of enterprises.
The restructuring enables enterprises to have autonomy, no longer bear strategic goals and people's livelihood goals, and can take profit maximization as a business goal, rather than locking in the input structure and technology selection that violates their comparative advantagesTherefore, it can improve the investment structure, increase profitability, and facilitate capital accumulation, thereby promoting technology research and development.
Analysis of the Intermediary Effect Based on Management Efficiency From the perspective of managers, before the restructuring, the functional departments were separated from production and operation, and it was difficult to effectively supervise managers, which led to speculation. At the same time, the lack of management experience is dispatched to state-owned enterprises, unable to carry out scientific management of enterprises, low competitive pressure and unemployment risk also make managers lazy to give full play to their management capabilities.
Therefore,In state-owned enterprises, managers lack incentives to improve enterprise performance, and are lazy in giving full play to their decision-making capabilities and introducing advanced technology and experience in the production and production of enterprisesThere is also a lack of awareness of what kind of local products have comparative advantages and are competitive in the world, which hinders the improvement of the level of enterprise production.
The restructuring makes managers professionalized and market-oriented, so that more talented managers have the opportunity to enter the enterprise, improves the degree of job competition, thereby increasing the cost of managers' moral hazard, and helps to reduce the short-sighted behavior of senior executives in on-the-job consumption and short-term performance improvement for tenure promotion, and improve enterprise performance.
The effectiveness of the restructuring can be explained from both the political perspective and the managerial view, but the two views are not opposite. After the restructuring, enterprises have the autonomy to make adjustments in the allocation of resources, the structure of inputs, and the selection of export productsIn this process, it is the management of the enterprise that makes decisions about how to make adjustments and how to gain an advantage in international competition.
At the same time, companies can also recruit more competent managers in the labor market. In addition, as mentioned above, restructuring can also solve the problem of management system to a certain extent, so if the enterprise has managers with stronger decision-making and management capabilities after the restructuring, it can rely on local comparative advantages to optimize the allocation of resources.
Guide enterprises to produce more competitive products and respond faster to the marketIt is conducive to improving the profitability of enterprises and the speed of capital and technology accumulation, and at the same time, managers can actively introduce the world's cutting-edge technology, improve the production efficiency and technical content of products, and promote the upgrading of enterprises.
As mentioned above, the restructuring can promote the marketization of management positions, but also promote managers to improve their ability and dedication, after the restructuring, the improvement of management efficiency can optimize enterprise decision-making, promote R&D investment, and ultimately improve the level of enterprise production, which is the important role played by management efficiency in the production and operation of enterprises, is an important way for the restructuring to play an effective role, and is also the reason why this paper takes it as the focus of mechanism analysis.
The heterogeneity of the impact effect of the restructuring of state-owned enterprises affects the technical level of state-owned enterprises not only by the factors mentioned above (such as investment structure, capital constraints, management efficiency, etc.), but also by the economic environment faced by the enterprises. One of the purposes of restructuring is to enable enterprises to have autonomy and to be able to freely and flexibly arrange production management models and optimize the allocation of resources.
If it is difficult for enterprises to make necessary adjustments to the original input structure and production mode to adapt to the market mechanism after gaining autonomy, or the profitability is relatively weak in the face of market competition, then the improvement of profits and capital accumulation of enterprises after the restructuring is restricted, which is not conducive to technological innovation, so the level of production technology may not be significantly improved.
In areas where heavy industry state-owned enterprises are concentrated, due to historical evolution and development strategiesThe local industry has been continuing the production model that violates the comparative advantage, and the state-owned enterprises are more dependent on subsidies and other policy inclinations, and the restructuring may not be able to make greater adjustments to the original mode of operation, and the level of enterprise production is not very obvious.
In addition, when state-owned enterprises face market competition after restructuring, it may be difficult for them to quickly adjust their production methods and management models to adapt to the market mechanism, while in industries with a high degree of monopoly, state-owned enterprises can continue to obtain monopoly profits by virtue of their original market position, and the negative impact of market competition will be relatively weak.
Therefore,In areas where heavy industry is concentrated and in industries with a high degree of competition, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises may be able to improve the level of enterprise performanceHowever, due to the difficulty of adjustment after the restructuring, the effect of the restructuring is not as significant as that of other state-owned enterprises.
According to previous research, there are two main reasons for the poor performance of state-owned enterprises, one is the burden of the first to give, and the other is that the management system does not meet the requirements of the market economy, resulting in low production efficiency. Most scholars argue for this phenomenon and its solution from the perspective of politics or managers.
Based on the conclusions of the existing literature, this paper theoretically explains how the restructuring of state-owned enterprises can promote the improvement of the technical level of enterprises from the two aspects of political outlook and managerial outlookAnd innovatively unify the two points of view to management efficiency, and improve the effect of restructuring from a new perspective.
It is necessary to persist in deepening reform and continue to promote and correctly guide the reform of state-owned enterprises. The study finds that the restructuring has brought significant improvement to the technical level of state-owned enterprises, and has a long-term positive effect on the high-quality development of enterprises, and the improvement of management level is an important way for the restructuring to play a role, which shows that the reform of state-owned enterprises is a correct choice for the manufacturing industry, and has a positive effect on production, management and other aspects.
Therefore,We should persistently promote the reform of state-owned enterprises and give play to the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, which is conducive to cultivating more competitive and creative enterprisesAt the same time, enterprises should also actively introduce private capital and foreign capital, and attach importance to the optimization of management system and production structure and technological innovation.
In carrying out the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, it is necessary to make some screenings and select state-owned enterprises to carry out restructuring so as to give full play to the maximum effect of restructuring. According to the conclusion of this paper, the restructuring effect of small state-owned enterprises is better, and other internal and external factors of the enterprise also have a certain impact on the restructuring. Therefore, in carrying out the reform of state-owned enterprises, we should adhere to the concept of "grasping the big ones and letting go of the small ones" and mainly carry out restructuring of small and medium-sized enterprises.
At the same time, it is necessary to consider the difficulty of adjustment and the self-generation ability of enterprises after the restructuring, and give priority to the selection of capital-intensive, non-long-term catch-up strategy in the region and in the low-competitiveness industry of state-owned enterprises for restructuringAs much as possible, the negative effects that the restructuring may bring to state-owned enterprises should be reduced, and the positive effects of the restructuring should be maximizedto prevent the "let it go and die" results.
In general, after the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, the policy burden and strategic burden are reduced, the enterprise gains autonomy, and the managers can adjust the production input structure, optimize the allocation of resources, and choose product types with a higher technical level.
At the same time, optimizing the decision-making when participating in the international market will help the enterprise to upgrade。Since the purpose of the restructuring of state-owned enterprises is to adjust the production management mode to adapt to the market mechanism, the difficulty of adjusting the enterprises after the restructuring will affect the effectiveness of the restructuring.
From the regional and industry levels, the impact of economic and environmental factors on the effectiveness of restructuring, specifically, for state-owned enterprises in areas where non-heavy industry priority development or industries with a low degree of competition are concerned, the positive effect of restructuring on the upgrading of enterprises is more obvious.