State Owned Enterprise Administration Program
Cambridge Graduate University is designed to provide global leaders with the tools, network, global understandings, and existential logic to have 21st Century global impact. As part of that mission, Cambridge Graduate University provides both the world’s only global campus university and the world’s only Masters and Doctorate degrees in State Owned Enterprise (SOE) Administration (SOEA) from the world’s top faculty.
SOEs, include sub-national enterprises as well, such as regional states, cities and local governments, and are prevalent in utilities and infrastructure industries, such as energy, transport, and telecommunications, whose performance is of great importance to broad segments of the population and to other parts of the business sector. Consequently, the management of SOEs will be critical to ensure their positive contribution to a country’s overall economic efficiency and competitiveness. It is in the governments’ and the public’s interest that all these categories of SOEs are professionally managed and apply state of the art practices. SOEs may be in competitive or in non-competitive sectors of the economy. The management program covers the distinctions between listed and non-listed SOEs, or between wholly owned, majority and minority-owned SOEs, since the management issues are somewhat different in each case.
SOEs face distinct challenges. One is that SOEs may suffer just as much from undue hands-on and politically motivated ownership interference as from totally passive or distant ownership by the state. There may also be a dilution of accountability. SOEs are often protected from two major threats that are essential for policing management in private sector corporations, i.e., takeover and bankruptcy. More fundamentally, difficulties derive from the fact that the accountability for the performance of SOEs involves a complex chain of agents (management, board, ownership entities, ministries, the government), without clearly and easily identifiable, or remote, principals. To structure this complex web of accountabilities in order to ensure efficient decisions and good management is a challenge.
The need for state ownership of commercial enterprises has varied among countries and industries and has typically comprised a mix of social, economic and strategic interests. Examples include industrial policy, regional development, the supply of public goods and the existence of so-called “natural” monopolies. Over the last few decades, however, globalization of markets, technological changes, and deregulation of previously monopolistic markets have called for readjustments and restructuring of the state-owned sector.
In order to carry out its ownership responsibilities, the state can benefit from using the most sophisticated tools applicable to managing SOEs and business enterprises globally. For the SOE Administration Program, not only will students cover cutting-edge Masters of SOE Administration and Doctorate of SOE Administration business management content, the content will cover the complex and unique dynamics of SOEs, such as Corporate Governance, complex political and governmental stakeholders, costs, capital structures, transportation, public mission, legal and regulatory structures, demographics, energy, infrastructure, telecommunications, commodities, global markets, and more.
Designed to prepare global leaders and managers of SOEs, this program integrates immersed regional knowledge of the globe with organizational leadership, stakeholder support, finance, investment, political and economic sophistication, global markets, and business management skills, to refine the judgment, skills, and instincts in navigating the complex relationships between the state, business, and private sectors, while making sound management decisions for the $ trillions invested in SOEs of the globe.
Course of Study
Through our practitioners and experts in areas such as business management, global markets, political negotiations, our students receive:
• Review of Legal and Regulatory Framework for SOEs;
• The State Acting as an Owner;
• Equitable Treatment of Shareholders;
• Relations with Stakeholders;
• Meeting and Managing Stakeholder Expectations of SOEs;
• Living Company Management Experience;
• Increasing Efficiency and Performance of SOEs;
• Capital Markets and SOEs;
• Social and Public Mission of SOEs;
• Transparency and Disclosure; and
• Responsibilities of Boards of SOEs.
These goals are met through an integrated mixture of worldwide cohort immersion intensives, lectures, Cambridge Leadership Immersion Method for Business (CLIMB) living investment portfolios, case studies, group discussions, and simulations.