Operating Performance of Privatized Firms in Europe: Organizational and Environmental Factors

This article analyzes the role of organizational changes and contextual factors in explaining the operating performance of European privatized firms. We find that smaller and non-regulated firms and companies privatized by public offer perform better than bigger, regulated, and privatized by private sale companies. Also, privatized Eastern European companies are less profitable than privatized companies from other European countries. Our findings suggest that organizational changes are more difficult to introduce in privatizations by private sale and in bigger and regulated companies. They also suggest that less developed institutional contexts limit performance improvements after privatizations.