State-owned enterprises (SOEs) have received growing attention in the public management literature. This paper uses historical institutionalism and political theory to study the evolution of SOEs as the outcome of state intervention. Using the case of the Canadian Wheat Board from 1935 to 2011—focusing specifically on the final years of its existence as an SOE—we develop a political process model that explains how state intervention affects SOEs through political organization work. This research contributes to several research conversations in the SOE literature, to the research on public organization work and institutional work and their combination, and to the resurgent conversation of historical institutionalism in management research by providing an empirically-based grounded theory.