TATARYNOWICZ, OH, & POSTUŁA, 2026

The Power of State Capitalism

Political Regime Shifts and Divergent Outcomes in SOE Performance

Paper

Tatarynowicz, A., Oh, W. Y., & Postuła, I. 2026. “The Power of State Capitalism: Political Regime Shifts and Divergent Outcomes in SOE Performance.” Journal of Management Studies, forthcoming in the Special Issue on State Capitalism and Firms: Ownership, Institutions, and Beyond.

Concept

This paper examines how the effects of state intervention in state-owned enterprises depend on the political ideology of the ruling government and on the dimension of performance under consideration.

Rather than treating the state as uniformly beneficial or detrimental, the paper distinguishes between scale-related and profit-based outcomes and shows how interventionist political regimes may improve one while weakening the other.

Summary

Building on the competing views of the state as strategist and the state as liability, the paper argues that political regime shifts reshape the objectives pursued through state-owned enterprises and, in turn, their performance outcomes. Using a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences design and panel data on Polish SOEs, it shows that the shift from a liberal to an interventionist regime was associated with stronger scale-related performance, though not with improved profitability. The analysis further shows that these effects varied with the depth of state involvement at the firm level.

Research setting

The empirical analysis focuses on Poland between 2014 and 2020, a period marked by a sharp transition from a liberal-centrist government to a more interventionist one. This setting makes it possible to observe how a change in ruling ideology reshapes the strategic use of SOEs within a common national context.

Why it matters

Research on state ownership has long produced mixed findings because it often treats both the state and firm performance as undifferentiated. This paper offers a more precise account by showing that the same state intervention can support expansion while creating pressure on profitability, depending on the ideological orientation of the regime and the governance channels through which intervention is exercised.

Citation

Please cite the published paper once the final bibliographic details are available:

Tatarynowicz, A., Oh, W. Y., & Postuła, I. 2026. “The Power of State Capitalism: Political Regime Shifts and Divergent Outcomes in SOE Performance.” Journal of Management Studies. Forthcoming.

Contact

Adam Tatarynowicz
Nova School of Business and Economics
adam.tatarynowicz@novasbe.pt