The issues of public sector enterprises (PSE) concerning their role in economic development and enhancement of country’ welfare have been subjects of intense debates worldwide both for economic theoreticians and policymakers. In recent decades, academic reasoning about the role of the public sector and public enterprises have fluctuated rapidly in line with swinging of economic policy from global wave of privatization in eighties and nineties toward massive state intervention during the recent crisis.

However, public enterprises remain important producer of goods and services both in developed and developing countries and in the recent years became key driver of emerging market economies’ growth. More than a hundred state-owned and public companies from Brazil, Russia, India, and China appeared for the first time on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's largest companies, while today nine of the world’s 30 largest listed firms are emerging-market companies that count the state as their dominant shareholder. These examples clearly illustrate that public sector enterprises can match the performance of their private-owned counterparties and become the world class players.

The rise of the public enterprises and the significant change of global economic conditions open the new debates about state ownership and state-managed enterprises in the economy and the weight and identity of private partners in the state-industry relationship. Hence, the real challenge for the market economies of the twenty first century will be to redefine their public-private mixture toward sustainable, marketoriented and socially responsible organizations. To achieve these goals, various issues like new forms of public private dialogue and partnerships, corporate governance and social responsibility, as well as clarification of the objectives and performance measurement of the PSE have to be frequently discussed.