Party discipline building has played a positive role in promoting the improved governance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Academic circles have shown growing interest in the relationship between Party building and SOE governance. However, existing research mostly remains at the level of normative description or practical observation, lacking historical context analysis on how Party discipline has been integrated into corporate governance structures across different periods and participated in the reconstruction of governance systems. There is also insufficient examination of the role of Party discipline in SOE governance.

This paper finds that, from a historical perspective, the role of Party discipline building in the improved governance of SOEs has evolved from external supervision to gradual internalization within corporate governance. During periods of socialist revolution and construction, reform and opening up and socialist modernization, and socialism with Chinese characteristics, it has respectively undertaken the political responsibility of overseeing SOEs’ implementation of socialist industrialization, standardizing and guiding their marketization and corporatization processes, and promoting the development of a modern SOE governance system with Chinese characteristics. This evolution process reflects two main threads:the strengthening of external institutional functions and the deepening of internal management concepts among SOE leadership. As a result, Party discipline building has progressively facilitated the coordination and unification of national governance and SOE governance, achieving a dynamic balance in the “responsibilities–rights–interests” triangle of SOEs.

The academic value of this paper is reflected in three aspects: First, it comprehensively presents the role of Party discipline building in the improved governance of SOEs through historical context analysis. The process from formal integration to substantive institutional fusion has made Party discipline building a unique and irreplaceable institutional arrangement in China’s SOE governance. Second, it expands the typology of embedded institutional structures in national governance theory, develops the ontological logic of socialist corporate governance, and bridges national capacity theory with SOE governance theory. Third, it proposes four targeted practical insights, which will help clarify the future directions of Party discipline building in improving SOE governance.