Unpacking the patterns of corporate restructuring during China’s SOE reform

State-owned enterprises(SOEs)in China have undergone significant restructuring since the mid-1990s.To date,scholars have devoted considerable attention to the constraints upon and motives for corporate restructuring in China.Yet the majority of the existing studies treat restructuring as a simple ownership transfer from the state to non-state entities without considering the resulting ownership structure of the firm.Consequently,we know relatively little about why otherwise similar SOEs were restructured at different times and through different means.This study intends to fill this gap by examining the determinants of both the timing and the methods of restructuring in a unique longitudinal survey of 145 SOEs over an 11-year period.Using a competing-risks model,we demonstrate that political as well as economic factors determine the possibility,nature and speed of restructuring.In particular,we show that political constraints on employee retention increase the likelihood that a SOE will be restructured as shareholding as opposed to its ownership being directly transferred to private hands.These findings shed new light on the economic and political logic of corporate restructuring in China.