Governance issues in public private partnerships (original) (raw)

2006, International Journal of Project Management

AI-generated Abstract

Academic research has increasingly shifted from debating the relative efficacy of state-and private-ownership to a comparative institutional approach that seeks to identify the relative costs and competencies of these governance forms to deal with particular hazards in specific transactions. Recent research, including the 10 articles included in this special issue, expands upon this insight to explore not only the polar cases of state-and private-ownership but also hybrid or alliance forms of governance. Particularly for transactions characterized by large up-front sunk capital investments (e.g., transportation infrastructure and construction), high standards of probity (e.g., health services and defence) or both (e.g., municipal solid waste), any contractual effort to eliminate the influence of the state is doomed to fail. The shadow of public policy looms over private actors in such investments as evidenced by the overwhelming likelihood of contractual renegotiation in infrastructure service contracts and other recent reassertions of public authority in privatized services. Given the long half-life of implicit public sector oversight, governance models which acknowledge this interest and seek to counteract the associated policy uncertainty should outperform governance modes that inaccurately portray governance as residing completely within the private sector. Instead, scholars and practitioners need more guidance as to the governance mechanisms that can facilitate public private partnerships both at the macro-and micro-levels.

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