Debate: Corporatization in local government— the need for a comparative and multi-disciplinary research approach

Abstract

During the past 20–30 years, scholars from different academic disciplines, as well as practitioners and local politicians, have observed a marked growth in the number of municipally-owned companies (MOCs) in local government service provision (Grossi & Reichard, 2008; Aars & Ringkjøb, 2011; Erlingsson, Fogelgren, Olsson, Thomasson, & Öhrvall, 2015; Ferry, Andrews, Skelcher, & Wegorowski, 2018). This process of corporatization is noticeable in many countries and seems to be transforming local government into multiple-entity public institutions, which are very different from their more monolithic predecessors.