This research adds to work on the development of infrastructure public–private partnership projects (P3s), which is a rapidly growing mode of infrastructure service delivery. Infrastructure P3 projects typically have a long life cycle, but little is understood about the nature of the changes that such a project goes through over the phases of its life cycle. This article contributes to project research as it studies the changes that an infrastructure P3 project goes through over its life cycle and suggests how those changes can be governed over the life cycle of the project. The research is empirically informed from an in-depth case study of a highway transportation P3 in California over a 20-year period. This research shows that the developmental phases of P3s differ by dramatic changes in the composition of stakeholder networks and the use of institutional logic. First, employing social network analysis (SNA), we map the network of stakeholders in the P3 case and show how the stakeholder network changes over four phases. Second, we identify how different stakeholders use formal and informal institutional logic in their interactions, and demonstrate that the dominant institutional logic employed in the P3 changes from informal to formal over the P3’s life cycle. We further show how this change in the P3’s dominant institutional logic corresponds to the dynamism in the stakeholder network. We propose that infrastructure P3s should be analyzed and governed as the dynamic arrangements they are—constellations of stakeholders that change individually and undergo change collectively over a long life cycle of different phases.

The growing gap between a global infrastructure deficit and the availability of public funding sources suggests private participation in the provisioning of public infrastructure will persist and even expand in the coming decades. However, the outcomes of these Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and their value for society, are discussed by many. The complicated governance arrangements of PPPs are at the heart of unpredictable outcomes. These complexities propagate uncertainties and risks for multiple stakeholders, which constrains supportive actions over a PPP's lifecycle. Much of the scholarship addressing PPP governance identifies critical success factors (CSFs) and key performance indicators (KPI)s from a private focal actor's perspective (and generally in a narrow time frame), but little attention has been paid to the fundamental challenge of dynamic stakeholder networks surrounding and encompassing PPPs. This paper empirically unpacks the project lifecycle into phases, and illustrates how stakeholder networks change with these phases.This paper provides an analysis of an in-depth PPP highway transportation case within the US. Using retrospective primary and secondary data, the results from a phase-based network analysis demonstrate changing organizational arrangements within the PPP stakeholder network. This research uses stakeholder theory as a conceptual framework for identifying and analyzing actors and perspectives, and suggests that PPP governance is a challenge in dynamic network governance. Its contributions are at the intersection of public administration, business management, and project management, supporting a larger undertaking by scholars to propose integrated theory for the governance of complex PPPs.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract