Governments around the world are involved in varying degrees of international business.  Many believe that countries that own corporations (state-owned enterprises or SOEs) change the “playing field” when it comes to competition.  Privately held businesses say they are forced to  compete on  an unequal playing field when it comes to competing with  SOEs on a global basis. While SOEs are renowned for being subsidized by their government they generally are highly inefficient, extremely expensive to operate, often produce lesser  quality products, and are ineffective at knowing how to compete with private sector Why are SOEs so much more inefficient and produce poorer quality products than their private sector counterparts – all competing against each other in the global market place?