Search results

With the increasing interest in public private partnership (PPP), there is a need to investigate the factors contributing to successful delivery of PPP projects. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the perceptions of respondents from Hong Kong, Australia and the UK on the importance of 18 such factors.

An empirical questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong and Australia. The survey respondents were asked to rate 18 factors which contribute to delivering successful PPP projects.

The findings from this survey were further compared with the results achieved by a previous researcher in a similar survey conducted in the UK. The comparison showed that amongst the top five success factors ranked by Hong Kong respondents, three were also ranked highly by the Australians and British. These success factors included: “Commitment and responsibility of public and private sectors”; “Strong and good private consortium”; and “Appropriate risk allocation and risk sharing”. Therefore, it can be concluded that there are certain common critical success factors for conducting PPP projects, irrespective of the geographical locations.

The findings presented in this paper have highlighted the most significant critical success factors which may be applicable to all jurisdictions, and also those which are specifically for Hong Kong and Australia. It is believed that the participants of future PPP projects can use these findings to maximize the success of conducting similar projects.

This paper sets out to present the findings of a study to investigate the reasons for implementing Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects.

A questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong (also commonly referred to as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region), Australia and the United Kingdom. The survey respondents were asked to rate the importance of nine identified reasons for implementing PPP projects.

The findings of the top three ranks for each respondent group were investigated. Ranked top by the survey respondents in Hong Kong was “Private incentive”. Ranked second by all three groups of survey respondents was “Economic development pressure demanding more facilities”. Third in Hong Kong and first in Australia was “High quality of service required”. The reason “Inefficiency because of public monopoly and lack of competition” was ranked third by the Australian respondents. And finally ranked first and third by the British respondents was “Shortage of government funding” and “Avoid public investment restriction”. The rankings showed that in general those rated highly in the United Kingdom focused on financial elements whereas those rated highly in Hong Kong and Australia were more related to the overall performance of improving public projects.

These findings were believed to provide an idea of the possible reasons for implementing PPP projects, and as a result illustrate a clearer understanding of the process.

The purpose of this paper is to study the measures that enhance value for money (VFM) in public private partnership (PPP) projects from the findings achieved in a questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey was conducted in Hong Kong (also known as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region) and Australia, and is compared to the results conducted by other researchers in the UK.

Respondents to the questionnaire were asked to rate 18 VFM measures in PPP projects.

The results found that the top five VFM measures ranked by the respondents from Hong Kong included: efficient risk allocation (allocating the risk to the party best able to manage it); output‐based specification; competitive tender; private management skill; and private sector technical innovation. The first and second of these VFM measures were also found to be ranked high by the respondents from Australia and the UK, indicating that these were true for these jurisdictions.

When the risks are handled well, less pitfalls are experienced and as a result VFM is more achievable. Hence, an efficient risk allocation is vital in determining whether VFM can be achieved in PPP projects. A clear output‐based specification can enable a more obvious project design and concept hence minimizing the possibility of delivering the wrong product for the user. Therefore, this measure is also important in determining whether VFM has been achieved for a PPP venture. Despite the interest in PPP, there is need for more systematic and in‐depth research to examine the measures that enhance VFM in PPP projects in Hong Kong.

In addition, this project also forms a comparative study for the use of PPP in Hong Kong, Australia and the UK.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (hereinafter referred to as Hong Kong) is an international leading commercial hub, particularly in Asia. In order to keep up its reputation a number of large public works projects have been considered. Public‐private partnership (PPP) has increasingly been suggested for these projects, but the suitability of using this procurement method in Hong Kong is yet to be studied empirically. The purpose of this paper is to specifically consider whether PPPs should be used to procure public works projects in Hong Kong by studying the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP.

As part of this study a questionnaire survey was conducted with industrial practitioners. The respondents were requested to rank the importance of 15 attractive factors and 13 negative factors for adopting PPP.

The results found that in general the top attractive factors ranked by respondents from Hong Kong were efficiency related: these included “Provide an integrated solution (for public infrastructure/services)”, “Facilitate creative and innovative approaches”, and “Solve the problem of public sector budget restraint”. It was found that Australian respondents also shared similar findings to those in Hong Kong, but the UK respondents showed a higher priority to those economic driven attractive factors. Also, the ranking of the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP showed that on average the attractive factors were scored higher than the negative factors.

The results of this research have enabled a comparison of the attractive and negative factors for adopting PPP between three administrative systems. These findings have confirmed that PPP is a suitable means to procure large public projects, which are believed to be useful and interesting to PPP researchers and practitioners.

As part of a comprehensive research study looking at implementing public private partnerships (PPPs), interviews with experienced researchers were conducted with the aim of realizing their views on private sector involvement in public works projects.

Amongst these interviews, five were launched with academics from Hong Kong and Australia, and two were conducted with legislative councillors of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government.

Findings show that Hong Kong and Australian interviewees had previously conducted some kind of research in the field of PPP. “Different risk profiles” and “private sector more innovative/efficient” were highlighted as the main differences between projects that were procured by PPP and traditionally. Other differences include risk transfer. In a PPP arrangement the public sector passes on a substantial amount of the project risks to the private sector, whereas in a traditional case the public sector would take the largest responsibility in bearing these risks. Another common feature of the private sector is that it tends to be more efficient and innovative when compared to the public sector; hence its expertise is often reflected in PPP projects. It was agreed that the key performance indicators for PPP projects were unique to individual projects. The critical success factors mentioned by both groups included “transparent process”, “project dependent” and “market need”. Because PPP projects tend to be large‐scaled costly projects, adequate transparency in the process is necessary in order to demonstrate that a fair selection and tendering process is conducted. A market need for the project is also important to ensure that the project will be financially secure and that the private sector can make a reasonable profit to cover their project expenditure.

The findings from this paper have enabled a comparative analysis between the views of researchers in two completely different jurisdictions. With the growing popularity to implement PPP projects, it is believed that the results presented in this paper would be of interest to the industry at large.

The adoption of computer technology by the construction industry has been driven by the competitive advantages offered by the available technology. The continuing evolution of information technology (IT) in the construction industry has led to widespread e‐mail use for informal project communications but, as yet, only limited use of IT for formal communications. This study aims to address this issue

An industry survey was conducted to assess the improvement towards IT literacy and increased competitiveness through the use of IT in Hong Kong, by comparison with previous surveys in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong.

The research found that the Hong Kong construction industry's IT technical maturity and technical infrastructure are well advanced and remain at about the same level as Australia and the UK. Construction professionals commonly perceived benefits in migration to formal electronic communications.

The perceived obstacles to the industry's adoption of formal IT‐based communications were found to be additional cost and security/confidentiality concerns, but there are underlying obstacles in the industry's structure and lack of incentive (and budget) at project level.

Adaptive reuse of existing building stock that has reached the end of its useful life, but not its physical life, is an important ingredient in the necessary adaptation of the constructed environment due to the impact of climate change and the need to conserve valuable resources into the future. This paper aims to advance previous research that has developed a means to predict adaptive reuse potential (ARP).

This study is conducted by comparing ARP (ARP) between urban and non‐urban settings drawn from case studies in both Hong Kong and Australia. The results are also compared to a database of 64 completed adaptive reuse case studies worldwide to provide a comparative benchmark against which to assess the findings.

Through application of the ARP model, mean values are determined for a number of variables that suggest that the model relates equally well to different contexts. However, the data further suggest that the 12 urban cases in Hong Kong have a lower ARP score on average than the 12 non‐urban cases in Australia, yet the maximum ARP score possible is higher.

The paper indicates that adaptive reuse intervention in Hong Kong is too late and valuable opportunity for economic, social and environmental gain is delayed.

The paper provides useful means to assist decision‐making on how to handle or use existing buildings. Understanding adaptive reuse potential of existing buildings is important and this study provides an effective method for supporting this understanding.

The means to predict ARP in previous studies is advanced in this study.

This paper compares the promotional practices and perceptions between two countries of disparate cultural backgrounds, namely Australia and Hong Kong. The paper argues that the preference for a particular promotional tool is influenced by the degree of cultural orientation as measured by Hofstede’s collectivism index. The central hypothesis is that countries with a higher score on the collectivism index are likely to favour personal selling promotion tools than will countries with a lower score. This hypothesis is tested with two separate samples of clothing and shoe retailers from Australia and Hong Kong. The hypothesis is supported from the statistical results.

At the stroke of midnight on 30th June, 1997 Hong Kong was returned to the People's Republic of China. China takes justifiable pride in what has to date been a smooth transition, but the government in Beijing is now confronted by a demanding reality, the need to make detailed arrangements regulating the legal ties between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) and the sovereign power. Not the least of the problems concern the degree and means by which mutual legal assistance in criminal matters will be made available. The puzzle for the People's Republic is that Hong Kong's dependent status begs a high degree of mutual cooperation with China, but the procedural safeguards that exist to govern Hong Kong's cooperation with third jurisdictions may not easily be used as a model: the safeguards built into the current legislation would operate to exclude the sovereign power! On the other hand, if future cooperation between Hong Kong and China is to take place without safeguards local and international confidence may suffer.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of public projects in Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney to uncover which areas project managers should focus on when managing public projects in different countries.

Based on the literature review, a structured questionnaire was designed to collect data of completed public projects. In total, 244 sets of data of completed public projects were collected.

Significant cost and schedule overruns are found in all four cities. Hong Kong’s public projects have the highest cost and schedule overruns. Singapore’s public projects have the lowest cost overrun and Beijing’s projects have the lowest schedule overrun. Public projects in all four cities recorded significantly good project quality.

The findings are not easily generalizable due to the relatively small sample size in Sydney, low response rate and data being collected from only four cities. The research implication is that the plethora of project management strategies does not seem effective in preventing cost and schedule overruns in public projects.

This study found that across the four cities, there are significant cost and schedule overruns. Projects in Hong Kong perform the worst in terms of cost and schedule, when compared to Beijing, Singapore and Sydney. The implication is that more attention should be paid to managing cost and schedule, especially in Hong Kong.

The originality is that the study discovered which areas project managers should focus on when managing public projects in different countries. In laissez-faire or free market economies, more attention should be paid to managing project cost and schedule. When a country has lower transparency index, more attention should be paid to controlling project quality. Project team members should focus on delivering public projects to the highest level of quality in developed countries.