Governing municipal companies

This project explores how municipalities govern their companies - primarily through ownership directives and ownership structures - and how that governance affects the companies’ ability to handle crises.

About the project

We look beyond formal board-member perspectives and examine the full governance chain: from municipalities and holding companies that develop and revise directives, to boards and CEOs who are expected to interpret and implement them. Our empirical focus is on decision makers who shape, translate, and operationalize these expectations.

We also study the processes that support or hinder this work – such as how risk levels are set, how warning systems and decision-making routines are organized, how owners follow up on operations, and how directives are updated after disruptions or near-misses. By comparing municipalities of different sizes and companies in three sensitive sectors - energy, waste, and water - we aim to develop theory on how ownership governance influences companies’ crisis preparedness. We focus on three key aspects: how companies detect risks, how they maintain operations during disruptions, and whether they have reserves to draw on.

Research team