Dynamic Stakeholder Networks and the Governance of PPPs

Abstract

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.

The evolving appreciation of projects – a study of stakeholder dynamics

“…The above discussion also shows that during project implementation, stakeholder interactions in their social networks are susceptible to changes. This finding is in line with the dynamics of stakeholder networks that have previously been observed in studies on organisations in general (e.g., Frost, 1995;South et al, 2015) and in specific projects (e.g., Kreiner, 1995;Missonier & Loufrani-Fedida, 2014;Papadopoulos & Merali, 2008). Overall, this research provides an empirical illustration of stakeholder networks and their dynamics and offers an approach to explain how these networks affect stakeholder perception.…”

“…The dynamics of stakeholder interaction in their networks are critical to making significant changes to organisations (Lamberg et al, 2008). In special situations, such as over different phases of public-private partnership (South et al, 2015), during the transformation of universities to be more "entrepreneurial" (Miller et al, 2014, p. 268), or during crises (Engelbrecht and Thomas, 2017), stakeholder interaction in the networks also change substantially.…”

Disruptive Times, Disruptive Engineering, the Need for New Approaches for Disruptive Project Management

“…Large projects, and especially PPPs, evolve during the life cycle of projects and stakeholder network changes. (South et al, 2015). We can learn from other domains as Urban Planning, Public Administration and Strategic Management where recently there is a growing number of publications on adaptive management approaches to cope with uncertainty.…”

Examining the State of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Institutionalization in the United States

“…However, these agreements also create many unique governance issues for public agencies (Guasch, Laffont, and Straub 2008;Mahalingam 2010;Garvin 2010;Delhi and Mahalingam 2017). By their nature, PPPs force governments to engage private firms in complex, co-dependent relationships, networks, and exchanges throughout the lifecycle of public infrastructure assets (Grimsey and Lewis 2007;Yescombe 2011;South, Levitt, and Dewulf 2015). One of the longstanding concerns associated with these types of long-term contracts is the resulting loss of government flexibility (Ross and Yan 2015).…”