Perspective—The Interdependence of Private and Public Interests

Abstract

T he predominant focus in research on organizations is on private or public institutions without consistent consideration of their interdependencies. The emphasis in scholarship on private or public interests has strengthened as disciplinary and professional knowledge has deepened: Management scholars, for example, tend to consider the corporation as the unit of analysis, whereas scholars of public policy often analyze governmental, multilateral, community, and nonprofit organizations. This article advocates a partial merging of these research agendas on the grounds that private and public interests cannot be fully understood if they are conceived independently. We review three major areas of activity today in which public and private interests interact in complex ways and maintain that current theories of organization science can be deployed to understand these interactions better. We also suggest that theories of public-private interaction require development and describe a concept called global sustainable value creation, which may be used to identify organizational and institutional configurations and strategies conducive to worldwide, intertemporal efficiency and value creation. We conclude that scholarship on organizations would advance if private-public interactions were evaluated by the criterion of global sustainable value creation, and we identify organizational research opportunities that jointly consider public and private interests.

Paths of convergence for agriculture, health, and wealth

“…The work by London and Anupindi (12) argues that, regardless of their leadership, such efforts have had only modest success so far. The limitations are partly because private and public sector actors still seek to maintain independence from each other's processes and outcomes, which is typical of most private-public partnerships for development and health (13). The work by London and Anupindi (12) explores how interdependent collaboration, with partners operating under the principle of how can we help each other to achieve shared societal and economic value, can increase the sustainability and scalability of value chain initiatives.…”

“…These actors span many local, national, and global systems, and they are not represented by just a few key players and a few key systems. This engagement requires shifting mindsets from tradeoff, zero-sum games, and competition to synergy, nonzero-sum games, and cooperation (13,34), much in line with the concept of collaborative interdependency introduced in the work by London and Anupindi (12). It also has to be systematically studied, deeply understood, and integrated into on the ground policies and actions.…”

Nature and Scope of Public Private Partnerships in the Water Sector in Kenya

“…Although Sustainable Value Creation Theory could as well have been used to explain the PPP, its limitation was its treatment of the actors as either distinctly private or public whose partnerships is only realized in outcomes in terms of common interest (Mahoney et al, 2009) or public interest considered on the basis of benefits accruing from addressing a wide range of public policy concerns by various stakeholders in the pursuit of the delivery of public good or services (Kivleniece, Ilze, & Quelin, 2012). This position is also supported, to an extent, by Ostrom in an analysis of the nature of goods and services that pertain the joint or exclusive use, consumption or creation for the market (Ostrom & Ostrom, 1971a, 1971b, 1977.…”

What Causes Technology Commercialization to Succeed or Fail after Transfer from Public Research Organizations

“…Also, during the fifteen years, the number of additional jobs created from the licensing and commercialization totaled an estimated 277,000 person-year of employment. Third, the commercialization process from public organizations to private firms is a canonical example of the interdependence of public and private interests (Aldridge and Audretsch, 2010;Mahoney, McGahan and Pitelis, 2009). The entire commercialization process starting at public institutions and developed at private firms shows how public and private interests are aligned.…”