The Oxford Handbook of State Capitalism and the Firm

There has been a major revival of interest in State Capitalism: what it is, where it is found, and why it is seemingly becoming more ubiquitous. As a concept, it has evolved from radical critiques of the Soviet Union, to being deployed by neo-liberals to describe market reforms deemed imperfect, to settle into a middle ground, as a pragmatic way to describe the state assuming a role as an active economic agent, in addition to its regulatory, social, and security functions. The latter is the central focus of this book, although due attention is accorded to the origins of state capitalism and how it has changed over the years, as well as contemporary ways in which state capitalism may be theorized. This economic agency may assume direct forms, for example, via state owned enterprises. However, it may also be indirect, for example, actively serving private interests through promoting insider firms, who may occupy monopolistic market positions and perform outsourced state functions. In turn, this leads to raising salient governance questions. The latter may encompass agency tensions between public ownership, and political or even private interest control; it may also include issues of transparency and monitoring. Although state capitalism has often been depicted as the preserve of states in the global south, be they developmental or predatory, many forms of state capitalism are visible in mature economies, be they liberal or coordinated, and this is not always associated with superior governance arrangements; indeed, this is an area where clear and easy divisions between the "developing" or "emerging" world and the "developed" or "mature" world may increasingly be breaking down. This volume brings together the accounts of leading experts from around the world; it is explicitly multi-disciplinary, and both consolidates the existing knowledge base, and provides new, novel, and counter-intuitive insights.

Mike Wright, late Professor of Entrepreneurship, Imperial College London,Geoffrey T. Wood, DanCap Private Equity Chair and Professor, Western University,Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra, Professor of International Business and Strategy, Northeastern University,Pei Sun, Chair of International Business, University of Manchester,Ilya Okhmatovskiy, Associate Professor, Universidade Nova de Lisboa,Anna Grosman, Associate Professor, Loughborough University

Mike Wright (1952-2019) was Professor of Entrepreneurship at Imperial College Business School. He held an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent, was a visiting professor at ETH Zurich and INSEAD, and a member of the BCVA's Advisory Board. Wright was also Director of the Centre for Management Buy-out Research, the first centre to be established devoted to the study of private equity and buyouts, which was founded in March 1986 at the Nottingham University. Wright has published around 1300 pieces of work according to Google Scholar, including 40 books and around 400 articles in scholarly journals on entrepreneurship, management buy-outs, venture capital, emerging markets, and strategy. Wright was a Fellow of the British Academy, Academy of Social Sciences and The British Academy of Management. Wright made an outstanding contribution to the business and management research community and was one of Britain's best-known academics.

Geoffrey T. Wood is DanCap Private Equity Chair and Head of DAN Management at Western University in Canada, and Visiting Professor at Trinity College, Dublin. Previously, he served as Dean and Professor of International Business, at Essex Business School and before then as Professor of International Business at Warwick Business School, UK. He has authored/co-authored/edited eighteen books, and over one hundred and eighty articles in peer-reviewed journals. He has an h-index of 41, and an i10-index of 163. He holds honorary positions at Griffith and Monash University in Australia. Geoff's research interests centre on the relationship between institutional setting, corporate governance, firm finance, and firm level work and employment relations. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, and is also in receipt of an Honorary Doctorate in economics from Aristotle University, Greece.


Alvaro Cuervo-Cazurra is a Professor of International Business and Strategy at Northeastern University and co-editor of Global Strategy Journal. He studies the internationalization of firms, with a special interest in emerging market multinationals; capability upgrading, particularly technological capabilities; and governance issues, focusing on state ownership and corruption in international business. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and was elected to the Executive Committee of the International Management Division at the Academy of Management. He has served as a consultant on global strategy to firms and governments in emerging markets. He received an honorary doctorate from Copenhagen Business School and was awarded a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Pei Sun holds Chair of International Business at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, UK. He received his PhD in business economics and strategy from Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. His research interests include corporate governance and nonmarket strategy, with a particular focus on how foreign and domestic firms manage and exploit institutional complexity and changes in emerging economies and how their strategies and corporate governance arrangements impact upon firm outcomes, stakeholders, and society at large. He has published papers in renowned academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management, and Journal of Management Studies. He serves as a senior editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Management and an associate editor of British Journal of Management.


Ilya Okhmatovskiy is Associate Professor at Nova School of Business and Economics, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. Previously he taught at McGill University and at the University of Southern California, where he obtained a Ph.D. degree in Business Administration. His research interests focus on corporate governance and business-government relations, mostly in the context of emerging economies. He has published in Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, and other journals. Ilya is a member of the Editorial Boards at Corporate Governance: An International Review and Strategic Organization. He served as Guest Editor for the Journal of World Business and currently serves as Senior Editor for Management and Organization Review.

Anna Grosman is Reader in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Loughborough University London. Her research falls at the intersection of corporate governance, corporate finance, and international business, with special emphasis on contemporary state capitalism, corporate governance issues of state-affiliated organizations, and Russia. She has published on state capitalism and corporate governance in journals such as the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, British Journal of Management, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Journal of Comparative Economics, and Economic Modelling, among others. Anna is also on the editorial boards of the Journal of World Business and Global Strategy Journal. Prior to her academic career, she worked for the US multinational Georgia-Pacific as a Director of Corporate Strategy and M&A for 4 years. Before that engagement, she worked for six years in investment banking and corporate finance for CIBC World Markets, Citigroup, and Close Brothers.