State Owned Enterprise Reform: a Case Study of the New Zealand Post Office

Abstract

Much has been said and written about the State-Owned Enterprise reforms of New Zealand's fourth Labour Government. The widely contended view is that these reforms were a radical change involving complete restructuring of the government trading enterprises. This thesis questions this interpretation of change, especially with regard to the change undergone by an individual enterprise. An examination of the attempts made to change the structure of the SOEs prior to 1984 suggests that the major reform programme of that year was, in fact, the next logical step in the overall process of restructuring. The purpose of that major reform, as of the changes made previously, was to give greater flexibility to the SOEs. Thus, the reforms had evolved incrementally. The distinctiveness of the reforms undertaken in 1984, however, was that the incremental steps were implemented rapidly. After an overview of the evolution and the financial performances of the SOEs of New Zealand, single case study is used in a further investigation of the changes undergone by an individual enterprise. The New Zealand Post Office was chosen as the individual enterprise to be investigated. Organisational changes that took place within the Post Office in the period from 1960 to 1 April 1987, when it became three separate organisations, are discussed. Through a detailed analysis of organisational changes of the Post Office, this study concludes that, in relation do this organization, the 1984 reforms essentially constituted a series of logical steps involving incremental changes.