Political Influence on Public–Private Partnerships in the Public Health Sector in New Zealand

The purpose of this article is highlight the influences on the performance of public-private partnership organizations established to provide procurement services for public-sector organizations. The findings provide evidence of some values-based fracturing in public-private partnerships in the New Zealand public sector. However, it is the impact of political influence that illustrates significant potential to undermine effectiveness and efficiency. This case suggests there are innovative approaches which can be adopted—other than traditional models of public expenditure—yet still providing a sustainable public health service. Finally the case argues for the importance of appropriate political understanding of the changing scenarios.     

Public–Private Partnerships in Health in Malaysia: Lessons for Policy Implementation

The government of Malaysia, an early and enthusiastic supporter of the concept of privatization of public services, can also be considered as being highly supportive of more recent strategies such as “public–private partnerships” (PPPs) in the delivery of social services. It established a Public–Private Partnership Unit (UKAS) in 2011. This discussion of Malaysia’s experience with health care PPPs is based on a literature review. The record is mixed, with successes and failures. Critical factors for success include regulation, transparency, clear policy guidance and clarity on operational procedures and responsibilities, proper evaluation mechanisms, sustained financial support, especially for NGO partners, and unwavering commitment from policy-makers.     

The Outcome of Renegotiations between Institutionalized Public–Private Partnerships and Their Public Clients: Data on the Public–Private Partnerships of the German Federal Armed Forces

This study analyzes the renegotiations that take place between institutionalized public–private partnerships (PPPs) and their public clients drawing on survey data on the PPPs of the German Federal Armed Forces. Generally, both the party that initiates such renegotiations and the time at which renegotiations are launched determine the outcome of the PPP’s renegotiated remuneration. This effect is moderated by the degree of contract specificity and by a decrease in demand. Specifically, when the public client initiates the renegotiation of an incomplete contractual agreement due to a decrease in demand, it can successfully reduce the remuneration of the PPP.     

The Nature of Contracting Hazards in Public–Private Partnerships—Evidence from Ireland

The use of public–private partnerships (PPP) for the procurement of infrastructure and related services can be a complex and challenging process. This article adopts a transaction cost regulation perspective to examine two PPP cases from Ireland that encountered significant obstacles to successful procurement. It finds that both procurements met hazards including uncertainty about the viability of the bids and opportunistic behavior by preferred bidders that held quasi-monopoly positions. The public nature of both cases provided a fertile ground for opportunistic behavior by political opponents and other “interested” parties. The analysis shows how the governance of PPPs is shaped by the attributes of the transactions and the interaction of economic and political hazards that create transaction costs.     

Infrastructure Public–Private Partnerships in the Developing World: Lessons from Recent Experience

Seeking to address inefficient and costly infrastructure delivery, governments over the past two decades have turned to public–private partnerships (PPPs) to build and operate infrastructure. The key characteristic of PPPs is the outsourcing and ‘bundling’ of project delivery components (for example, design, build, finance, operate), structured to incentivise the builder-operator to incorporate long-term operating cost considerations in the design and construction phases of a project and reduce coordination costs. This article reviews the benefits and drawbacks of PPPs and the experience to date, focusing in particular on developing economies. Relative to traditional procurement, PPPs are complex, and require governments to anticipate and plan for contingencies and conduct monitoring and enforcement of long-term contracts. We argue that institutional capacity is a key determinant of PPP success and in mitigating potentially welfare-reducing contract renegotiations evident in the Latin American experience.     

Recovery Risk and Labor Costs in Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Choice in the US Water Industry

We use an ordered logistic model to empirically examine the factors that explain varying degrees of private involvement in the US water sector through public–private partnerships. Our estimates suggest that a variety of factors help explain greater private participation in this sector. We find that the risk to private participants regarding cost recovery is an important driver of private participation. The relative cost of labour is also a key factor in determining the degree of private involvement in the contract choice. When public wages are high relative to private wages, private participation is viewed as a source of cost savings. We thus find two main drivers of greater private involvement: one encouraging private participation by reducing risk, and another encouraging government to seek out private participation in lowering costs.     

Public–Private Partnerships in Urban Regeneration: Democratic Legitimacy and its Relation with Performance and Trust

Public-private entities set up specifically to manage and implement urban regeneration projects have been observed across several nations. In these urban regeneration partnerships, public and private partners often work together to improve languishing neighbourhoods. One of the core ideas driving the establishment of these partnerships is that, in order to more effectively tackle the challenging regeneration process, these organisations should function at arm's length from the political institutions that oversee them.

A specific question concerning these partnerships is how representative mechanisms work and how the partnership process is linked to traditional representative bodies or in other ways is connected to principles of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the so-called democratic legitimacy of urban regeneration companies, as a form of public–private partnership, in more detail. It makes a distinction between three types of democratic legitimacy: accountability, voice, and due deliberation. Using material from a survey among managers of urban regeneration companies (URCs) in The Netherlands, this paper examines the impact of these three forms of democratic legitimacy on outcomes and trust of these URCs.

The results show a fairly strong correlation between some criteria of democratic legitimacy, especially due deliberation on the one hand and performance and trust on the other hand.     

Local Public-Services Provision under Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Design and Contracting Parties Incentives

When deciding to resort to a PPP contract for the provision of a local public service, local governments have to consider the demand risk allocation between the contracting parties. In this article, I investigate the effects of demand risk allocation on the accountability of procuring authorities regarding consumers changing demand, as well as on the cost-reducing effort incentives of the private public-service provider. I show that contracts in which the private provider bears demand risk motivate more the public authority from responding to customer needs. This is due to the fact that consumers are empowered when the private provider bears demand risk, that is, they have the possibility to oust the private provider in case of non-satisfaction with the service provision, which provides procuring authorities with more credibility in side-trading and then more incentives to be responsive. As a consequence, I show that there is a lower matching with consumers’ preferences over time when demand risk is on the public authority rather than on the private provider, and this is corroborated in the light of two famous case studies. However, contracts in which the private provider does not bear demand risk motivate more the private provider from investing in cost-reducing efforts. I highlight then a tradeoff in the allocation of demand risk between productive and allocative efficiency. The striking policy implication of this article for local governments would be that the current trend towards a greater resort to contracts where private providers bear little or no demand risk may not be optimal. Local governments should impose demand risk on private providers within PPP contracts when they expect that consumers’ preferences over the service provision will change over time.     

A Power Horizontal. The Public–Private Enforcement of Judicial Decisions in Russia

Based on fieldwork done in Ekaterinburg, this article deals with the enforcement of legal decisions about economic disputes in the late 2000s in Russia. As state employees, bailiffs are responsible for the implementation of court decisions but their efficiency depends on the cases they deal with. In the most successful cases, they are backed by private enforcers, hired by the claimant and often coming from the law enforcement agencies. This common work reflects an informal public–private partnership from below in which bailiffs and private enforcers co-execute judicial decisions. Such autonomous public–private power configurations at local level challenge the governmental claim to build a ‘power vertical’ in Russia from the top.     

Public–Private Partnership in Tunisia: Enfidha Airport Assessment of an Infrastructure Achievement

One of the largest recent private-sector investments and the first airport private-sector concession in the Maghreb is Enfidha Airport, a key factor in the success of the Tunisian Government’s public–private partnership (PPP) strategy. However, since Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, political and social turmoil is sweeping the country and worsening the economic indicators. This article aims to assess this PPP infrastructure, allowing us to determine if it is profitable in the long term and contributes therefore to the economic growth. The case study reveals the key role of the economic, social, and political environment in Tunisia, the dawn of the Arab Spring.     

Public Perceptions of Privatization in Ethiopia: A Case for Public Good or Private Gain?

Ethiopia is one of the many countries in sub-Saharan Africa attempting to privatize various state-owned enterprises since 1994. This study examined public perceptions about Ethiopia's privatization policy and procedures. Results support the concerns over the public's inability to know about, be involved in and comment upon public policies affecting Ethiopia's future. Findings also support the literature that a privatization policy is effective only when institutional and technical capacities for proper implementation are in place. Further, findings raise questions about the efficacy of privatization in a national context where interests may be misrepresented.     

Pursuing Private or Public Accountability in the Public Sector? Applying IPSASs to Define the Reporting Entity in Municipal Consolidation

Private-sector accounting systems have often been heralded as superior to public-sector ones and suggested as solutions to the shortcomings of the latter. Our article aims at contributing to this debate by looking at the adoption of business-like practices where the public and private sectors intersect. Our analysis shows that the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs), strongly inspired by International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), might not ensure the expected disclosure. Municipalities adopting IPSASs for preparing consolidated financial statement do not necessarily increase accountability because some relevant public service providers are not included in the reporting entities.     

Assessing Public Managers' Change-Oriented Behavior: Are Private Managers Caught in the Doldrums?

This article presents a concept and a measurement of managers' change-oriented behavior related to the initiation and implementation organizational change. It is argued that managers have an optimal potential for achieving organizational changes if they have the change-centered leadership style, are intuitive, recognize demands for change, and have power-motivated behavior. Public and private managers are significantly different in relation to change-oriented behavior based on data from 343 managers in two public organizations and one private. One result was unexpected: public managers are more change-oriented than managers in business organizations. As expected, there is no significant difference in change-oriented behavior among managers in public agencies. Possible explanations for these outcomes are presented.     

Did Public Transfers Crowd Out Private Transfers in Korea During the Financial Crisis?

How effective are public transfers in protecting households facing financial crisis-induced negative shocks? Existing studies have not yet carefully considered the inter-relationship between public transfers and the existing private transfer network. In the context of the financial crisis in Korea, this paper investigates the possible crowding-out effect of public transfers on private transfers by explicitly considering the endogenous responses of private transfers against public transfers. By using two Korean household-level panel data sets for the periods of 1995–1998 and 1998–2003, we found a post-crisis, but not pre-crisis crowding-out effect of public transfers; more importantly, a crowding-in effect is observed during the crisis. The results suggest that private transfer networks were strengthened under the initial phase of the financial crisis, which possibly complemented public transfers due to the lack of effective formal safety nets, while public transfers became effective after the crisis, thereby replacing private transfers. Our results suggest that particularly at the initial stage of the crisis, the government could have played an important role in assisting households to weather the negative impacts of the crisis.     

Public–Private Partnership (PPP) as an Interdependent Form (I-Form) Organization

As “public–private partnership” (PPP) is becoming a popular model among states, the debate concerning how to make it more successful is accelerating. Based on insights from contemporary organization theory (OT), the present article suggests that instead of taking PPP as “partnership” between private and public sector partners, it is rather more beneficial to construe it as inter-dependent form (I-Form) organization. Subsequently, it identifies three types of interdependencies, faced by PPP-based I-Form organizations, and furnishes a model—comprising of initial and external conditions, and interplay of internal factors—that could enable smooth functioning and performance of I-Form organization.     

Public Policy in the Passive-Aggressive State: Health Care Reform in Bosnia-Hercegovina 1995–2001

This article uses Bosnia and Hercegovina as a prototype of an emerging subset of weak states, the passive-aggressive state. Appearing as the result of agreements ending civil strife, the general characteristics of the passive-aggressive state include complex power-sharing arrangements at the centre and local institutions that are designed for capture by parties to the conflict, which in turn creates a weak and segmented civil society. As a result, only the international community can devise and financially support policy reform, but it must rely on the state to implement the reform. Dependent on international support for its own survival, the centre rhetorically embraces reform while local institutions engage in passive resistance to block it. This article uses three examples of health care reform in Bosnia to illustrate the difficulties of reform in these types of states. The paper concludes with observations on how strengthening the powers of the central government and reorienting international aid towards civil society might alleviate some of the structural problems of passive-aggressive states.

passive-aggressive: Of, relating to, or having a personality disorder characterised by habitual passive resistance to demands for adequate performance in occupational or social situations, as by procrastination, stubbornness, sullenness, and inefficiency (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition).     

Public Administration Research in Mainland China: A Systematic Review of Chinese Public Administration in English Language Journals (1996–2016)

This study provides a systematic review of the development of Chinese public administration in English language journals. An analysis of articles in the top 25 English-language public administration journals worldwide from 1996 to 2016 confirmed increases in both the number and significance of studies of Chinese public administration. A systematic content analysis of abstracts of previous studies was performed and showed that social development and administrative reform were among the most important topics. With respect to the methodology of this study, qualitative methods were more frequently used than quantitative or mixed methods. Finally, implications for future research on Chinese public administration are discussed.     

Is Managerial Work in the Public and Private Sectors Really “Different”? A Comparative Study of Managerial Work Activities

This article aims to discern the extent to which managerial work is similar and different in the public and private sectors. Using propositions and structured categories for describing what managers do, this article compares results of an observational study conducted in the Canadian public sector with similar studies from the private sector. Through a comparison of work type, hours, location, activities, and contact patterns, this research finds few differences in managerial work activities between the two sectors, despite contextual and situational differences. Possible explanations are explored, implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.