The significance of the restructuring of state-owned enterprises lies in:
First, establish a modern enterprise system.
The reform of state-owned enterprises can effectively promote the establishment of modern enterprise system, and one of its fundamental goals is to establish modern enterprise system in state-owned enterprises. As an economic cell, enterprises must have market awareness, competitive awareness and sufficient innovation ability, otherwise they will be eliminated by the market mechanism because they cannot meet and realize market demand. The establishment of modern enterprise system is precisely to enable state-owned enterprises to have the ability to cope with market demands and conditions under market economy conditions, actively participate in the torrent of market competition, and constantly maintain the vitality and vitality of enterprises.
There is no unified opinion at home and abroad about the content of modern enterprise system. But it is generally believed that the modern enterprise system should include:
(A) scientific and reasonable enterprise organization
The internal organizational structure of enterprises, especially the organizational structure of companies, has absorbed the establishment mechanism of some representative state institutions and carried out reforms at the same time to meet the needs of companies and enterprises with profit as the goal and capital union as the feature. According to the view of property right school, the allocation of resources within enterprises is obviously contrary to the mechanism of market choice determining resource allocation. The economic principle of the existence of enterprises is that enterprises can save the cost of finding relevant prices and negotiating and signing transactions. By forming an organization and letting some authorities (entrepreneurs) control resources, we can save market transaction costs. Williamson believes that modern companies are "the result of many organizational innovations with cost-saving purposes and effects." The basic feature of modern companies is a multi-department and multi-level centralized control system. It uses the internal administrative power (the so-called "visible hand") instead of the market mechanism (the so-called invisible hand) to allocate the internal resources of the enterprise. Transactions previously completed by the market are now "internalized" into the company, which is coordinated and controlled by the managers of the enterprise. Demsetz believes that the development of the company objectively needs to raise huge funds in order to obtain the benefits of economies of scale. But if every shareholder participates in the decision-making, the cost is very large. In order to avoid this consequence, management power must be concentrated in a few hands. In order to avoid the adverse consequences caused by the operator's dereliction of duty being borne by shareholders, a limited liability system has emerged; In order to avoid the external cost brought by the operator's behavior to shareholders, the norm of free transfer of shares has appeared, which reduces the cost of shareholders' supervision over company management and is conducive to the consistency between operators and shareholders. Therefore, establishing a scientific and reasonable internal organization is conducive to reducing the transaction cost of enterprises and improving the transaction success rate and efficiency of enterprises.
(B) modern enterprise property rights system
This system requires enterprises to have clear property rights, that is, enterprises should have the right to possess, use, benefit and dispose of enterprise property, and have the right to decide how to use enterprise property for profit-making activities. In addition, the investor gives up the ownership of the invested property, and the enterprise obtains the ownership of the investment at the expense of the investor's acquisition of equity. Enterprise property rights have realized the dual transformation of equity and ownership. The object of investor's equity is property in the form of equity, while the object of company ownership is property in the form of production factors. The ownership of enterprise as a legal person and the investor's equity restrict each other: the investor controls the macro-behavior of the enterprise through equity so as not to deviate from the highest interests of shareholders; Enterprises realize the independence of production and operation by obtaining ownership, and its independence can ensure enterprises to actively and accurately capture market signals and adjust their behaviors in time, thus realizing profits. Only in this way can the highest interests of investors be realized.
(C) Modern corporate governance system
Modern corporate governance system is the normative sum of the internal governance structure of enterprises. "Corporate (enterprise) governance" includes: the distribution and exercise of corporate control, the supervision of the board of directors, managers and employees, the evaluation of their work performance, and the design and implementation of incentive schemes. Corporate governance structure is a concept to describe the contractual relationship between different members of an enterprise, and its purpose is to solve two basic problems inherent in the enterprise: incentive problem and operator selection problem. The former refers to how to urge all participants in the enterprise to improve the output of the enterprise when the given output is the result of collective efforts and personal contribution is difficult to measure; The latter refers to how to ensure that the most entrepreneurial person becomes the operator (manager) of the enterprise when the ability of a given entrepreneur is unobservable. Economists believe that the above two problems must be solved through rational distribution of principal. The entrustment right here refers to the residual claim right and control right. The so-called residual claim refers to the right to claim the fixed surplus (total income MINUS fixed contract payment) of the enterprise; Generally speaking, the right of control refers to the right to choose and supervise agents (including the right to make business decisions and the right to choose and supervise business members).
An effective corporate (enterprise) governance structure should meet the following conditions:
First of all, the most fundamental thing is that the residual claim should correspond to the control right as much as possible, that is, the person who owns the residual claim and bears the risk should have the control right; On the contrary, those who have control should take risks; Secondly, the remuneration income of operators should be linked to their operating performance, rather than fixed contract remuneration. This and the third point are the corollaries of the first point; Third, investors must have the right to choose and supervise operators, because investors are the ultimate bearers of risks, and they have the most natural motivation to choose excellent operators, fire bad operators or supervise operators; Fourthly, the optimal corporate governance structure should be a state-dependent control structure, that is, the control right should be related to the natural state, and the enterprise should be controlled by different stakeholders in different States. Because in a world where the contract cannot be complete, only relying on the control of the state can make the interests of operators and asset owners achieve the best consistency; Fifth, in order to solve the problem of investors hitchhiking, the control of enterprises must be concentrated in the hands of a few major shareholders. Major shareholders can solve the agency problem by maximizing interests and fully controlling enterprise assets. In addition, the capital structure also has a great influence on the effectiveness of corporate governance structure.
In our country, the state is a pure outsider and has no internal owner at all. Operators have no interests in state-owned enterprises, so as agents of state-owned enterprises, there will be many problems. In addition, the directors and managers of state-owned enterprises are appointed by the state, not by the capital owners. Government officials have neither the motivation to choose good business operators nor the responsibility for wrong choices; Moreover, regardless of the performance of the operators, the residual interests of enterprises are owned and dominated by the state, and government officials may be replaced at any time. Therefore, the control right and residual claim right of an enterprise are separated from each other from the beginning. Therefore, in order to do a good job in enterprises, we must solve the problems of incentive mechanism and operator selection. Reforming state-owned enterprises and establishing a scientific and effective modern enterprise system are effective ways to achieve this goal.
Second, realize the transformation of government functions.
The reform of state-owned enterprises also requires the government to realize the function transformation, that is, to get rid of the position of being both the executor of public power and the operator of state-owned enterprises in the past and become a simple subject to provide public goods-laws, policies and services. And return the control and management rights of the enterprise to other subjects, such as shareholders, board of directors, operators and creditors. The process of establishing and perfecting the socialist market economy is the process of the transformation of national government functions. As an agent of state assets, the government not only undertakes the functions of safe custody of social assets (state-owned assets) and protection of the ultimate owner's rights and interests, but also undertakes the functions of reproduction, management and operation of state-owned assets in the sense of capital. Practice has proved that the government is really unwilling to play this dual role, nor can it have it both ways. Mainly manifested in:
(A) it is difficult for the government to directly operate a large number of state-owned enterprises.
Due to the large number of state-owned enterprises, it is difficult for the state to act as an agent of management, so we have to hand over this function to civil servants. However, in the environment of administrative system, civil servants are used to doing things according to the rules of administrative behavior, and it is difficult to form an incentive and restraint mechanism that meets the requirements of market economy laws. The difference between civil servants and entrepreneurs is that civil servants do not have to bear any responsibility for their own choices, and entrepreneurs will lose their jobs if they make mistakes in decision-making. The position arrangement of civil servants has nothing to do with the business performance of enterprises. Therefore, it is difficult for civil servants to manage state-owned enterprises as agents to achieve the goal of maintaining and increasing the value of state-owned assets in the whole society.
(B) the complexity of reproduction and operation of state-owned assets
As a kind of capital, the essence of state-owned assets determines that it must realize value-added in the flow. This is an extremely complicated process and must be completed by professionals. It is obviously not feasible for the government to fully operate state-owned assets.
(C) the government's direct development and management of enterprise human resources difficulties
Material state-owned assets must be combined with human capital in enterprises to increase their value. However, if the government manages the human resources in enterprises and encourages the enthusiasm and creativity of the owners of human capital in enterprises, it is inevitable for the government to use administrative means or administrative means, which will cause great waste of human resources in the state-owned economy. Therefore, state-owned enterprises must be managed by market-oriented economic entities.
Third, to achieve the reform goal of establishing and perfecting the socialist market economic system
The goal of China's current economic system reform is to establish a socialist market economic system. The so-called market economy system means that the market, as the dominant force in resource allocation, has changed the situation that the state, especially the administrative organs, has controlled and decided whether and how to allocate social resources for a long time. The reform of state-owned enterprises is conducive to promoting the establishment and improvement of the market economic system.
Fundamentally speaking, state-owned enterprises (formerly known as "state-owned enterprises") are established by the state to control and master resources. In socialist society, the mainstream ideology has always believed that the emergence, differentiation and development of classes are closely related to the fact that some people have mastered the means of production while others have lost control of the means of production, and it can even be said that it is inevitable. After the proletariat gains political power, an important manifestation of its ownership is the mastery and control of the means of production. However, due to the large number of proletarians and the moral denial of personal interests, it is impossible for anyone to master and control the means of production as an agent of the proletariat. Therefore, the ruling country naturally becomes the "ideal" agent for the proletariat to master and control the means of production. It is impossible for a country to run an enterprise in person, so it is necessary to entrust the right of management to government officials, who act as agents of the country to run and manage the enterprise. In this way, state-owned enterprises have been turned into institutions similar to state organs by the state, and their duties are not to make profits from production and operation, but to complete the instructions and plans issued by the state. Therefore, whether a product has a market prospect is not something that enterprises should consider: if it is profitable, it should be turned over to the state for the state to adjust among different enterprises; If there is a loss, the country will naturally find ways to make up for it, without worrying about the enterprise. State-owned enterprises don't have to compete fiercely for profitability, so they lose their enthusiasm and initiative in production and operation. As for the employees of state-owned enterprises, there is neither the danger of unemployment nor the possibility of profit. The workload has nothing to do with employees' wages, and it has almost no say in the production and operation of enterprises. As a result, state-owned enterprises have lost their vitality.
Under the market economy system, the allocation of resources is basically carried out through the market. Therefore, whether an enterprise's products or services can be accepted by the market determines whether an enterprise can survive and obtain sufficient social and natural resources. Therefore, enterprises must be market-oriented to determine their own production, management and service strategies, attract the attention of consumers, and attract funds, talents, raw materials and other resources to flow to enterprises. Similarly, as the main body of market and competition, enterprises must give full play to the role of their economic cells, and connect individual natural persons, legal persons and other economic organizations through contracts to form a complete and organic production, sales and management network. In order to cooperate with the economic ties and contractual relations between enterprises, a series of other contractual relations and trading opportunities must be established and provided, such as labor market (including entrepreneur market and other senior labor service providers market) and financial market. Many transaction factor markets and contracts between enterprises will establish a market mechanism with unified rules and free transactions nationwide. All these require active enterprises to link up with the freedom of enterprise control, decision-making power and production and management rights. Therefore, through the reorganization of state-owned enterprises, the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of state-owned enterprises can be activated for a long time, and enterprises full of vitality and initiative will effectively promote the perfection and development of the market economic system.
Transfer from: Enterprise Reorganization Network