Probing the Strategic Intricacies of Public–Private Partnership: The Patent as a Comparative Reference

This article pursues a detailed understanding of strategic considerations in large-scale partnership negotiations that have implications for public service over the long term. Specifically, this study focuses upon the strategic context of negotiation between governmental entities and private firms as fundamental to partnership viability. Metaphorical comparison between U.S. patent policy (especially as it pertains to cutting-edge biotechnical and digital information issues) and public–private partnership is used to coax out new insight about the latter. The first section sketches an outline of U.S. patent policy as a means of generating analogous questions that can structure discussion of strategy in public–private partnerships. The second section explores the intricacies of public partnership by responding to four questions derived from the patent metaphor. In probing the implications of strategic partnership issues for public managers, the final section defines new capacity-building roles that are consistent with governance as an emerging form of public administration.     

Partnership in Economic Development: The Case of U.K. Local Enterprise Agencies

The rapid development of local enterprise agencies in Britain in the 1980s has been an important focus for the increasing involvement of the private sector in economic development. These agencies present themselves as locally oriented partnerships and the paper draws on evidence from a recent survey, undertaken by the author in Greater London, to show what partnership can mean in practice. A particular focus is the relation between enterprise agencies and local authorities. This leads to a discussion of some of the policy issues arising from the development of these agencies which is part of a wider growth of the non-elected state in Britain through the decade. It is argued that their development raises important questions concerning their lack of local democratic accountability.     

Governance Forms in Urban Public-Private Partnerships

The article starts a conversation in the literature about the governance structures of certain kinds of collaboratives in public management: public-private partnerships. The findings come from the study of implemented partnerships for regeneration and management of city centres in the U.S. (Business Improvement Districts) and U.K. (Town Centre Management), and the introduction of urban regime theory. A three-ideal typology is built up, concerning the roles played by structures/design of the partnership, legal frameworks, incentives, evolution, competition, governance structures, and the ways all of these evolve. The conclusion is that public-private partnerships are constantly evolving and may assume “variable geometries” in response to the form of governance dominating their internal arrangements. Partnerships may be of various kinds: symbolic partnerships, in which hierarchical governance predominates; instrumental partnerships, which obey market rules; organic partnerships, where the predominant form of governance is network-based. The kind of PPP employed affects how the relationship between public and private organisations is managed.     

Public–Private Partnerships and the Public Accountability Question

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are growing in popularity as a governing model for delivery of public goods and services. PPPs have existed since the Roman Empire, but their expansion into traditional public projects today raises serious questions about public accountability. This article examines public accountability and its application to government and private firms involved in PPPs. An analytical framework is proposed for assessing the extent to which PPPs provide (or will provide) goods and services consistent with public sector goals of effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Six dimensions—risk, costs and benefits, political and social impacts, expertise, collaboration, and performance measurement—are incorporated into a model that assists public managers in improving partnerships’ public accountability.     

Analyzing Territorial and Sectorial Dimensions of Public–Private Partnerships in Science,Technology, and Innovation policies

The performance of innovation systems depends, to a great extent, on the degree of public–private collaboration they involve. Thus, innovation policies often aim to enhance this collaboration through public–private partnerships. These partnerships are a multidimensional phenomenon whose success depends on factors related to each of their dimensions. This paper proposes the use of an analytical model that reflects the multidimensional nature of public–private partnerships and analyses to what extent they are applied in a specific innovation system in order to identify the territorial and sectorial factors that act as barriers or drivers to use them. This model aims to help policy makers design appropriate public–private partnerships in each context. The case under review is the Spanish innovation system, given that this system has been suffering from a structural lack of collaboration for several decades, despite the implementation of policies aimed to foster this. Thus, if the model works, it should be able to identify key factors that influence greater or more restricted use of the different PPP formulas.     

What Does ‘Collaboration’ Without Government Look Like? The Network Qualities of an Emerging Partnership

Cross‐sectoral partnerships are increasingly common in Australian human service delivery. Yet research has not often focused on partnerships where private actors broker an arrangement to address complex community needs. Using a combination of interviews, focus groups, and social network analysis (SNA), this paper investigates the network qualities of a nascent partnership between a not for profit (NFP) service provider and a major retail water company that seeks to address financial hardship. Ultimately, we assess whether this represents genuine collaboration or another form of joint action. We find that the privately steered partnership generates instrumental benefits characteristic of cross‐sectoral arrangements, as well as challenges. SNA reveals a very high degree of connection between the partner organisations, but the results suggest that the partnership is coordinative rather than collaborative. We also find that this is leading to tacit organisational and institutional modifications as the NFP assumes a ‘market facing’ posture and adjusts to the demands of working with private sector partners. However, at this early stage of development, the level of systemic adjustment between both organisations remains incomplete.     

Improving Partnership Governance: Using a Network Approach to Evaluate Partnerships in Victoria

Partnerships of various kinds are now widespread, but evaluating them is complicated. This article examines the usefulness of a network approach for analysing partnership effectiveness, where the central concern is governance. The approach is based on interviews, and for this evaluation they were conducted with 120 people from 10 different partnerships in Victoria. A detailed examination of network structures uncovers important features of partnerships, yielding crucial information about them as governing entities, and providing feedback to partners on where effort needs to be spent on relationship building. This article adds to the existing knowledge about what makes partnerships effective, and to the toolkit available for evaluating them.     

Enduring neoliberalism in Alberta's oil sands: the troubling effects of private–public partnerships for First Nation and Métis communities

Changes in federal government relations with First Nations and Métis in Canada have been described as shifting over time, from fur trade colonialism, to welfare colonialism, to neoliberal partnerships. Acknowledging changes and continuities in Aboriginal peoples–state relations over time, this article examines the effects of recent policies that emphasize private–public partnerships for economic development on Indigenous communities in northern Alberta. We argue that while the term ‘partnership’ connotes equality, cooperation, and consensus, the actual workings of partnerships are anything but equal, and the effects include fragmentation, competition, and lack of overall accountability. These outcomes work against the needs and aspirations of Indigenous communities.     

Preserving the Public Interest in Highway Public–Private Partnerships: A Case Study of the State of Texas

Faced with existing revenues sources that are insufficient to finance highway maintenance and construction needs, some state and local governments are using or considering highway public–private partnerships. These partnerships may be attractive as a way for a government to obtain upfront revenues from the long‐term lease of a road and to shift some of the construction and operations risks to a private firm. However, with these benefits, comes the need to preserve the public interest. This paper discusses issues related to preserving the public interest in highway public–private partnerships and presents a case study of the State of Texas. The case study focuses on an analysis of the strengths and limitations of Texas’ policies and procedures to protect the public interest in the use of long‐term leases for the financing, construction, and operation of new toll roads. The case study also discusses what other governments may be able to learn from Texas’ experiences.     

Collaborative Public Management and Democracy: Evidence from Western Watershed Partnerships

This article provides a framework for assessing the democratic merits of collaborative public management in terms of seven normative ideals: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment. The framework is used to analyze a random sample of 76 watershed partnerships in California and Washington State. The study reveals the exclusionary nature of some partnerships and suggests that critical stakeholders are missing from many partnerships. However, representation was generally balanced. National and statewide advocacy groups were absent from most of these place-based partnerships; public agencies were the primary source of nonlocal perspectives. Deliberativeness was relatively strong, indicated by the prevalence of educational and fact-finding strategies and participants' perceptions of respectful discussion and improved social capital. Half the partnerships had implemented new policies, and two-thirds of stakeholders believed their partnership had improved watershed conditions, indicating empowerment.     

Beyond the Contract: The Scope and Nature of Informal Government–Nonprofit Partnerships

Privatization research lacks an understanding of the scope and nature of informal service delivery relationships between nonprofits and local government. This article reports on a study of local service delivery partnerships in Georgia using survey and interview data. In addition to assessing the frequency of noncontractual partnerships, this study builds on B. Guy Peters's definition of public–private partnerships to delineate the control–formality dimensions of these partnerships more clearly. The agency theory notion that a trade-off occurs between formality and control is also tested. The findings show that most public–private partnerships involving nonprofits are led by government agencies, and they are only weakly collaborative in the sense of shared authority or resources. Often, community norms substitute for formal service agreements. The study concludes with suggestions for further research regarding trust and behavioral norms in public–private partnerships.     

Stakeholder partnerships as collaborative policymaking: Evaluation criteria applied to watershed management in California and Washington

Public policymaking and implementation in the United States are increasingly handled through local, consensus‐seeking partnerships involving most affected stakeholders. This paper formalizes the concept of a stakeholder partnership, and proposes techniques for using interviews, surveys, and documents to measure each of six evaluation criteria. Then the criteria are applied to 44 watershed partnerships in California and Washington. The data suggest that each criterion makes a unique contribution to the overall evaluation, and together the criteria reflect a range of partnership goals—both short‐term and long‐term, substantive and instrumental. Success takes time—frequently about 48 months to achieve major milestones, such as formal agreements and implementation of restoration, education, or monitoring projects. Stakeholders perceive that their partnerships have been most effective at addressing local problems and at addressing serious problems—not just uncontroversial issues, as previously hypothesized. On the other hand, they perceive that partnerships have occasionally aggravated problems involving the economy, regulation, and threats to property rights. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Getting the fundamentals wrong: woes of public–private partnerships in solid waste collection in three Ghanaian cities

Until over a decade ago, concerted efforts at involving private agents to deliver solid waste collection services did not feature in local government's (LG's) policies and practices in Ghana. The LGs had over the years directly delivered the services with their labour, materials and equipment. The purpose of entering into partnerships with private contractors was to improve service delivery. This comes at a time when the private sector is generally viewed as more efficient and effective than the public sector. There is abundant literature on potential benefits of private sector participation in public service delivery; yet, figures of efficiency gains are often accepted without challenge. More advantages but fewer disadvantages are cited and anecdotal evidence is used only to illustrate successful applications of the concept of public–private partnerships (PPPs). Using research data from three cities (Accra, Kumasi and Tema) in Ghana, this article exposes the contrast between policy expectations and outcomes of PPPs. The article argues that simply turning over public service delivery to private agents without ensuring that the fundamentals that make them successful are put in place leads to a worse situation than portrayed in literature about the benefit of PPPs. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Troubles,partnerships and possibilities: a study of the Making Belfast Work development initiative in Northern Ireland

This article examines the theory and operation of development partnerships through an analytical study of the Making Belfast Work (MBW) Initiative in Northern Ireland. This initiative of the Northern Ireland Department of the Environment contributed to the building of the current Northern Irish Peace Process. It illustrates the difficulties faced by a government in engaging in socio‐economic development in one of the world's most difficult policy environments. The history of the MBW initiative also provides insight into the interaction of two contending models for organizing European Society, namely ‘Regulated Capitalism’ and ‘Neoliberalism’ and the relationship of these models to partnership theory. This study argues that motivations for the development of partnerships in Belfast defy easy theoretical classification; yet empirical evidence suggests that a twin‐track approach—one from above, the European Union; and one from below, of indigenous policy evolution—have together through policy diffusion made MBW a leading pioneer in partnership theory and practice. The article discusses the literature on partnership within New Public Administration outlining ideas on various classifications of partnerships operative in the public sector. Particular attention is paid to how partnerships of societal actors and government can effectively involve the local community through community development approaches. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public‐private partnerships in international trade: a lobbying effort from passive to aggressive in the USA?

Public‐private initiatives have been the domain of many governments as they try to shape international trade for their countries. The research presented in this paper indicates that US international businesses are not satisfied with the passive role that has been assumed by the US government and current public‐private partnerships. The evidence suggests that US companies desire a more aggressive role for the federal government in the not too distant future. Public‐private partnerships will be less informational and play an active part in stimulating international trade throughout the world. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

Governance within public–private partnerships and the politics of urban development

Public-private partnerships are the preferred vehicles for the planning, financing and implementation of contemporary urban development. Scholarship on public-private partnerships tends to examine their activities in advancing development. Less attention is accorded to their internal dynamics or governance. While partnerships are intended to build internal consensus and obtain consent in order to carry out urban development, this premise assumes that coordinated public and private interests are in play. This paper examines the internal governance of two public-private partnerships in Rochester, New along three dimensions: conformity to a collective purpose or vision, leadership structure and organizational style.     

Personal transformation in multistakeholder environmental partnerships

This paper examines some of the secondary or indirect consequences of multistakeholder collaborative processes in the environmental arena. Its thesis is that such collaborative processes constitute fertile ground for participating actors to experience change in their subjective understandings of and relationships to each other, themselves, and environmental action. This exposition draws upon ethnographic research performed with a U.S.-based multistakeholder environmental partnership over a two year period in 1997–1998 as well as a theoretical perspective conceptualizing these personal transformations in terms of social learning, cultural production, and identity formation. Three main findings are explored that support the proposed thesis. The first concerns contributions toward personal transformation made by typical partnership structures and operations. The second pertains to the existence of a commonly shared belief among partnership participants demonstrating an expectation for such changes. The third involves evidence that such transformations actually do take place. Examples from the case study include changes to participants understandings of other environmental stakeholders, the development of new relationships among participating actors, the adoption of new ways of approaching environmental problem solving and decision making, and the formation of altered identities. The paper explores some of the implications, both positive and negative, that this transformative quality of multistakeholder environmental partnerships has for both environmental problem solving and some of the enduring conflicts that have impeded satisfying environmental action in the past. Finally, recommendations are made for how practitioners may organize, manage, and evaluate multistakeholder partnerships to promote such changes.     

Public–Private Partnerships: Organisational Hybrids as Channels for Local Mobilisation and Participation?1

The article focuses on new forms of governance involving partnerships between public and private actors. As several scholars have noticed, organisational hybrids at the intersection of the public and private sectors play an important part in the implementation of collective action. Local economic development in particular has provided a fertile ground for building coalitions across traditional divisions, and encouraging partnerships. This applies to Norway as well as to other liberal Western democracies.
Obviously, the formation of partnerships reflects efforts to design more efficient and flexible instruments for founding new firms and for supporting local entrepreneurs. The article, however, raises the question of whether these arrangements may entail a far more expanded role and domain, opening up new channels for participation and mobilisation. By expanding their agenda and integrating new segments of the local community, public–private partnerships appear to be an innovation in local democracy.
Analytically, the article utilises elements of regime theory. Although the partnerships studied hardly constitute stable coalitions dominating local politics, they nevertheless illustrate how the building of coalitions including both private and public actors is crucial to coping with the problems and challenges of local restructuring and revitalisation. Case studies carried out in Norwegian municipalities provide the main empirical source. The article does, however, build on experience from other European countries.     

Explaining Levels of Local Government Involvement in Service Delivery: The Dynamics of Cross‐Sector Partnerships in Malawi

This study explores how local governments and their development partners—that is, donors, non‐governmental organisations and private companies—structure their partnerships as they work together to provide services to communities. Cases of collaboration between four organisations working in the rural water supply sector and six local governments in Malawi are studied. Using a cross‐case qualitative methodology, we illustrate how power and control translate into practices, leading to different levels of local government involvement in service delivery. This study contributes to the literature on cross‐sector partnerships in particular by developing empirically‐based propositions that help explain the dynamic trajectories that partnerships between local governments and their development partners can take. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public–Private Partnerships in Urban Regeneration Projects: Organizational Form or Managerial Capacity?

Urban regeneration companies (URCs) are public‐private entities appearing across Europe. They are created specifically to manage and implement more effectively urban regeneration projects. Core ideas behind the establishment of these newly emerging partnerships aim to tackle the challenging process of restructuring these organizations so as to function at arm’s length from political oversight. However, contemporary literature on governance suggests that organizational form may be less a factor than managerial capability. Using survey data obtained from individuals who are heavily involved in Dutch urban regeneration partnerships, this article points out why twin URC organizational characteristics, i.e., functioning at arm’s length from politics plus its tight organizational format, are not significant to their effective performance. Instead, use of multiple management strategies is ultimately more relevant to their effective performance.