Do we know about the public tasks? Explanations for Public Mandate Reporting in Dutch MOCs
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2022-08-05
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en
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Abstract
Municipally Owned Companies (MOCs) play an increasingly important role in governance. Despite this, their corporate governance remains a black-box. An important instrument in corporate governance is the annual statement. Yet, little scientific attention has been given to reporting on public service outcomes in this document: public mandate reporting. This study aimed to firstly assess the quality of public mandate reporting in Dutch MOCs and secondly explain why some MOCs do, and others do not provide information on public mandate realisation. It did this by analysing annual statements from Dutch MOCs using a pre-developed index-variable for public mandate reporting. Consequently, an in-depth case-study was executed including both best and worst performers. It was found that in general the quality of public mandate reporting in Dutch MOCs their annual statements is low. Differences in quality were found to be explained by the existence of formal agreements on the content of reporting and the professional opinions on the matter of those involved. These results underline the relevance of agency theory in the relationship between municipalities and MOCs and call for a professional discussion on the desired role and content of annual statements of MOCs.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen