State-Owned Enterprises: Toward Sustainable Development

Sustainable development (SD) is widely considered as our common future, which should be the concern of all countries. Therefore, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are supposed to seek sustainable development. This paper has four main objectives. The first is to emphasize SD as an important target for the common future of the whole world. The second is to explore SOEs, and their increasing importance, as a promising “mean” for reaching this target. The third is to provide a generic “framework” of SOEs that enhances their understanding and supports their assessment and future development. And the fourth is to provide an example of using the framework for an active SOE in Saudi Arabia. The paper hopes to provide useful guidance to dealing with SOEs; and to supporting their role in the SD of their countries and the whole world.