Public–Private Partnership in Poland

Abstract

A language barrier prevents us from understanding how other cultures look at public administration, as "semantic fields" differ between languages. These differences can never be fully grasped, but what we can do is study what happens when a particular concept crosses the border. In this article we select a concept, public-private partnership, that in recent times migrated from one administrative order, the United States, to another, Poland. We follow this concept on its migration to see how it changes and to find out what these shifts in meaning tell us about the differences between the two social realities involved.

Managing Infrastructure Projects in Australia

“…The 1970s saw a shift toward new public management (NPM), due to significant attention being paid to measurement of individual and organizational results (Bovaird & Loffler, 2003;Jorna et al, 2010). During this period, public management reforms were influenced by cuts in government growth and spending, moves toward privatization and adoption of a market-based approach for the delivery of public services (Hood, 1991).…”

“…Despite the fact that NPM enabled governments to rationalize public services and focus on outcomes, the approaches of NPM were not without weaknesses (Bovaird & Loffler, 2003). During the 1980s, fiscal crisis and the triumph of neoliberalism "running government business" and "more with less" became dominant themes (Jorna et al, 2010). Bovaird (2004) rightly argues that capital-starved public organizations had to select PPPs as an option for service development.…”

“…The increasing focus on collaboration in the literature suggests that the diversity of demand from citizens and the increasing costs of public services in the areas of large infrastructure, health, and education have added a new dimension to the complexities that emerged recently. To face such a challenge, PPPs, with promises of increasing efficiency in public service provision, emerged as a management tool for modernizing traditional public administration (Jorna et al, 2010; Sedjari, 2004). The actual practice of PPPs reveals that this partnership arrangement is fundamentally different from traditional contractual agreements.…”

“…Building a relationship between participating parties takes time; long-term relationships and previous work experience can play a role in building trust, and this has not been studied. Although Edelenbos and Klijn (2007) and Jorna et al (2010) highlight the challenges and complexities of building trust between actors, little attention has been paid to developing a workable model that clearly demonstrates how such trust can be built between parties with their own self-interest. Hence, informal relationships between parties can play a significant role in building trust within PPPs.…”

“…The assumptions in governments (e.g., Partnerships Victoria, 2009), and studies on PPPs overseas and in Australia (Brown, 2007; Maskin & Tirole, 2008; Newberry & Pallot, 2003; Nisar, 2007a; Yusuf, Wallace, & Hackbart, 2006), reveal that such partnerships increase the responsibility of the partners to share risks inherent in large infrastructure projects in particular, and in general serve to relieve pressure on government budgets. The failure of traditional public management approaches toward service delivery was identified as one reason for this increased collaboration between the public and the private sectors (Jorna, Wagenaar, Das, & Jezewski, 2010). Providing better and quality services has always been challenging for governments (Watson, 2003b); implicit, however, was the recognition that some managerial and technical competencies reside more in the private sector than in the public sector in addressing such challenges.…”