Notwithstanding voluminous studies probing the relationship between publicness and performance, few of them examine the extent to which key organizational and managerial variables moderate publicness effects. This study conceptualizes the role of organizations' administrative affiliation with different levels of government, which are sources of multiple, conflicting political controls, in moderating the effect of ownership on organizational performance. We examine how ownership and affiliation jointly influence regulated entities' achievement of energy conservation targets assigned by China's central government. The analysis of a combined dataset on quasi-public and private organizations shows that centrally affiliated organizations, which are more likely to receive unified policy demands, outperform local entities that are influenced by fragmented institutional controls. The performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is contingent on their administrative affiliation. Specifically, central-SOE subsidiaries and central SOEs are leaders of policy goal accomplishment. Organizations with more rigorous targets achieve a higher level of policy goal.

Link:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10967494.2019.1595796