Politics and Economics in ‘Making the Elephant Dance’

The process of "making the elephant dance" means ratcheting up SOEs to perform more effectively as one of the driving engines at the domestic economic level.

State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Minister Erick Thohir once introduced an interesting phrase to the public: "teaching the elephant to dance". We can decipher the message. The "elephant" relates to large companies.

This phrase, as stated by Erick in his honorary doctoral inauguration speech at the School of Economics and Business, Brawijaya University, Malang, on 3 March, comes from a management book by Professor Rosabeth Moss that he studied while in the United States.