Politics play a major role in the operations of SOEs.

To increase profits and cut costs, for example, a company’s best strategy might be to eliminate jobs and raise prices. However, its owner, the state, might oppose these and any other actions that would raise unemployment or fuel inflation. Regulators may look the other way instead of cracking down on workplace-safety violations.

Even when the government is not the majority share-holder in a company, or no longer holds a direct owner-ship stake, it can meddle in corporate affairs and affect operations.

Brazil’s Vale S.A., the world’s biggest miner of iron ore, was privatized in 1997. But the government, which wielded power through public sector pension fund investments in the company, continued to dominate. In 2011, government pressure forced out the company’s CEO, Roger Agnelli, because of displeasure with his strategy of stepping up exports to other countries.

Politicians had criticized Agnelli for several years, charging him with failing to create and keep jobs and cutting investments after the 2008 financial crisis. He ignored their pleas to build steel plants in Brazil and to cut back on iron ore exports to foreign steel producers, such as China. Agnelli eventually paid the price for taking the company in a direction that did not have government support.

Similarly, Russian officials succeeding in getting rid of CEO Bob Dudley of TNK-BP Ltd., a joint venture. London-based BP plc’s 50-percent stake proved no match for the power of the Russian tycoons who engineered legal and regulatory pressure on the company in 2008.

Many Western managers, including Dudley, left TNK-BP complaining that the Russian shareholders — aided by the government — were behind legal and regulatory pressures on the venture. Ultimately, in a compromise reached in 2009, the board was whittled down from 13 members to six, with BP losing significant control, and a new CEO was appointed.

TNK-BP touted the addition of independent directors to the newly reconstituted board, including former Ger¬man Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. But in early 2012, Schroeder and another independent director reportedly resigned when TNK-BP took steps to sue BP for attempt-ing to make a side deal with Rosneft, another major Russian state energy company.

The Vale and TNK-BP experiences illustrate why journalists should pay close attention to how the state can influence companies’ operations, even interfering with management and ousting CEOs who do not follow directions.

Politics often play a role in companies that are ostensibly free of government control. That’s often the case with giant telecommunications companies, which usually are heavily regulated and subject to political persuasion.

In South Africa, union critics alleged that politics played a role in the telecom firm Telkom’s decision to sell a portion of its interest in Vodacom, the largest operator in Africa, to British operator Vodafone, and that the tender process was corrupt.

The Communications Workers Union (CWU) and the South African Communications Union charged that various Telkom moves — which included outsourcing some of its operations — were linked to political upheaval, with company executives seeking to “secure their futures” before new political leadership could impose any changes, according to reporter Lesley Stones’ article in Johannesburg’s Business Day.

Labor organizations can be fruitful sources for journalists when political interference threatens jobs, though their accusations must be weighed carefully for accuracy and fairness.