Interest Coordination of Stakeholders in the Companies Providing Public Services

Contemporary management models are becoming increasingly indispensable in the running and management of companies under the modern dynamical operating conditions. All this concepts and management models, despite their differences, stress the importance of establishing fundamental platforms in order to ensure long-term development capacities, and consequential effective performance of the enterprise. This concepts and models of management further state, that a company is (also) an interest organisation, which makes the coordination of stakeholders involved of a crucial importance for its immediate success, as well as for its long-term existence and development. For that reason, we focus our research on the investigation of findings about the coordination of interests amongst stakeholders in the process of setting out the vision and enterprise policy, as represented in selected models and concepts of management. When discussing the issue of implementation of contemporary management models and concepts, a special notice has to be taken when dealing with the management of the organisations in so called public sector. Because of their specific objectives, ownership structure and related management modes, the concepts and models of management used in other companies are not directly applicable. Adjustments need to be made. Therefore, we continue the theoretical part with the analysis of particularities of managing companies within the public sector and the analysis of coordination of interests among their stakeholders. We look at the adjustments that need to be taken when setting out the vision and enterprise policy of organisations within the public sector. The emphasis is put on a distinctive group of organisations within the public sector that are state-owned and perform public-economic-service mission. Because they combine the elements of the public sector with those of a commercial undertaking, their management can often be very complicated and demanding. Crossing of interests and non-implementation of appropriate coordination processes can often lead to difficulties in managing of such organisations, resulting in a reduced operational performance, often to the extent when their further development and existence is at risk. In a search for a viable, long-term solution to this problem, companies in this sector are often changing their ownership structure - so called privatisation. This way, this companies with an un-optimal ownership are transformed into ‘regular’ commercial undertakings, where the ownership and consequentially the ways of managing are supposed to be known. The problem that usually arises when such a transformation takes place is, that it often faces opposition of the stakeholders – on the internal (mainly employees) as well as external (service users) level. An alternative to the above is the improvement of management within the current, or minimally changed ownership structure. Essentially, that calls for a changed approach of the key stakeholders, especially their timely and effective coordination and active involvement in the managing process, prior to the onset of a crisis. We therefore conclude the theoretical part with establishing a model for coordination of stakeholders’ interests, which is adapted for corporations providing services within the public sector. In the empirical part of the research, we use the conclusions from the theoretical part to address the unique case of Slovenian Railways, a business system (group) of corporations, operating under normal market conditions, while also displaying considerable characteristics of a public sector organisation, following specific public interest goals.Contemporary management models are becoming increasingly indispensable in the running and management of companies under the modern dynamical operating conditions. All this concepts and management models, despite their differences, stress the importance of establishing fundamental platforms in order to ensure long-term development capacities, and consequential effective performance of the enterprise. This concepts and models of management further state, that a company is (also) an interest organisation, which makes the coordination of stakeholders involved of a crucial importance for its immediate success, as well as for its long-term existence and development. For that reason, we focus our research on the investigation of findings about the coordination of interests amongst stakeholders in the process of setting out the vision and enterprise policy, as represented in selected models and concepts of management. When discussing the issue of implementation of contemporary management models and concepts, a special notice has to be taken when dealing with the management of the organisations in so called public sector. Because of their specific objectives, ownership structure and related management modes, the concepts and models of management used in other companies are not directly applicable. Adjustments need to be made. Therefore, we continue the theoretical part with the analysis of particularities of managing companies within the public sector and the analysis of coordination of interests among their stakeholders. We look at the adjustments that need to be taken when setting out the vision and enterprise policy of organisations within the public sector. The emphasis is put on a distinctive group of organisations within the public sector that are state-owned and perform public-economic-service mission. Because they combine the elements of the public sector with those of a commercial undertaking, their management can often be very complicated and demanding. Crossing of interests and non-implementation of appropriate coordination processes can often lead to difficulties in managing of such organisations, resulting in a reduced operational performance, often to the extent when their further development and existence is at risk. In a search for a viable, long-term solution to this problem, companies in this sector are often changing their ownership structure - so called privatisation. This way, this companies with an un-optimal ownership are transformed into ‘regular’ commercial undertakings, where the ownership and consequentially the ways of managing are supposed to be known. The problem that usually arises when such a transformation takes place is, that it often faces opposition of the stakeholders – on the internal (mainly employees) as well as external (service users) level. An alternative to the above is the improvement of management within the current, or minimally changed ownership structure. Essentially, that calls for a changed approach of the key stakeholders, especially their timely and effective coordination and active involvement in the managing process, prior to the onset of a crisis. We therefore conclude the theoretical part with establishing a model for coordination of stakeholders’ interests, which is adapted for corporations providing services within the public sector. In the empirical part of the research, we use the conclusions from the theoretical part to address the unique case of Slovenian Railways, a business system (group) of corporations, operating under normal market conditions, while also displaying considerable characteristics of a public sector organisation, following specific public interest goals. In the final part, we use the conducted analysis of the key-stakeholders’ interests and the detected shortcomings, to introduce possible measures to improve the reconciling of interests