Good and transparent management of state-owned companies – reality or utopia?

Abstract

Certain tasks in the Republic of Slovenia are in the domain of the state or local community. In order to carry out these tasks, state-owned or public companies have been established.

The management of such companies is not always good and transparent, and as a result, it often leads to considerable damage to public property. Such situations are mostly caused by poor management by the management boards, and rarely by poor and inadequate control by the supervisory boards. They are also the result of poor and inadequate communication between the management and supervisory boards. Unfortunately, poor governance does not occur in isolated cases and the mismanagement of such companies is often only introduced to the public through affairs that are presented in the media.

There are, however, also some positive exceptions with good and transparent corporate governance that bring profits to the shareholders and, consequently, lower the prices of individual services for citizens.