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Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are viewed as a reform tool for resolving inefficiency and absence of dynamism in water supply delivery in developing countries. However, the requirements for their successful implementation have received very little attention. This paper aims to describe a set of critical success factors (CSFs) that, when given special and continual attention, would ensure a successful project implementation and to provide a predictive tool to aid implementers to evaluate the likelihood of a successful PPP water supply project.

Fourteen perceived CSFs were initially derived from project cases and extant literature, and verified through a two-round Delphi survey. Factor analysis established five critical success factor groups (CSFGs) that were then used to develop a fuzzy synthetic evaluation tool for assessing the chance of a successful project.

The five key CSFGs are commitment of partners, strength of consortium, asset quality and social support, political environment, and national PPP unit. The model output showed that, overall, these factors have a “very high” positive impact on a successful implementation of a water supply project. Hence, there is an excellent correlation between achievement of the CSFGs and project success. Success indices of individual principal factors are also “very high”.

The study presents a tool to public clients and private audience, and it is hoped that the study will trigger policy development towards PPP practice in developing countries, because these findings have wider implications for legal and regulatory systems, public capacity, financing, public procurement and politics.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer governments an opportunity to access private capital and skills to build or upgrade, operate and manage public water infrastructure services hitherto provided and run by the public sector. Access to private finance speeds up the provision of public water services in developing countries, where many governments face budgetary constraints. However, the water sector attracts the least investment flows in developing countries, well below other infrastructure sectors. This paper aims to present the results of an investigation of critical success factors (CSFs) required for attracting the private sector in water supply projects.

A structured questionnaire survey of international PPP expert opinions was conducted.

Analysis results show that the CSFs for attracting the private sector to water PPPs include political commitment from elected leaders toward PPPs for water supply; existence of a dedicated PPP unit; strong and competent public water authority; adequate fiscal capacity of a national/subnational authority; public acceptance and support of involvement of the private sector in water services; a well-designed PPP contract; existence of enabling policy and legal frameworks to support water PPPs; and profitability of water supply project(s) to attract investors and lenders. Agreement analysis also indicates a strong to very strong agreement on the significance and rankings of the CSFs.

The research findings provide an insight into a number of important issues to enable greater private participation in water supply projects, most of which aim at reminding governments of some key areas that need reform and enabling greater commitment among them to undertake such reforms. Given the limited empirical research on CSFs for attracting private participation, this research makes a contribution to the body of knowledge about private involvement in the water sector of developing countries.

The purpose of this study is to investigate barriers to the adoption of digital technologies (DTs) in the circular economy (CE) transition in the construction industry. The aim is to quantitatively investigate what the barriers to DTs-driven CE are in the Nigerian construction industry.

A review of existing literature identified 32 barriers to DTs-led CE. A well-structured quantitative research questionnaire was developed and administered to construction experts using a convenient sampling technique via hand delivery and Google form. The gathered data were analysed using arrays of both descriptive and inferential statistical methods.

The study revealed that the awareness of the digitalisation of CE is high, but the adoption is low. Five themes of the leading 10 factors responsible for the low adoption of DTs in CE transition in the Nigerian construction industry are (1) finance and demand barrier, (2) data management and information vulnerability, (3) skills shortage and infrastructure challenge, (4) poor government and management support and (5) interoperability and resistance problems.

This study could be helpful to decision-makers and policy formulators, which would provide an avenue for higher adoption of DTs in CE transition in the construction industry, better performance and environmental protection. It also provides a foundation for further research efforts in Nigeria and other developing countries of Africa and beyond.

Studies on the barriers to DT adoption in CE transition are still growing, and this is even non-existent in the Nigerian construction context. This offers a unique insight and original findings by pioneering the identification and assessment of barriers to the digitalisation of CE transition in Nigeria’s construction industry.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the factor groupings of a set of 19 critical success factors (CSFs) associated with managing public-private partnership (PPP) projects at the operational stage and examine the most significant factor grouping using fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique.

The paper adopted a comprehensive review of the pertinent literature and an empirical questionnaire survey geared towards targeted international PPP experts. Survey responses were analysed using factor analysis and FSE modelling.

The results from factor analysis show five CSF groupings (CSFGs) for managing operational PPPs. These are proficient service delivery and adequate legal structures, simplified payment mechanism and consistent project monitoring, effective contract variations management, suitable stakeholder management mechanism and environmental health and safety control. The FSE modelling shows that “simplified payment mechanism and consistent project monitoring”, is the most critical CSFG. The operational management CSFs under this grouping are acceptable level of user fee charges, efficient and well-structured payment mechanism, consistent project performance monitoring and long-term demand for public facility.

The major limitation lies in the low sample size that was used for analysis; however the years of research and/or industrial experience of respondents and the wide coverage of different cultural backgrounds (18 countries from five regions globally) contribute to the authenticity of the survey responses. Future research should adopt interviews and case study analysis to unravel CSFs in managing operational PPPs.

The findings of this study are considerably beneficial to both public authorities and private operators. They inform practitioners of the strategic procedures and measures to employ in optimising the operational performance of PPP projects. Further, the methodology employed allows project management experts to reliably select the operational management CSFs for their projects.

The purpose of this study is to assess the potential benefits of digital technologies (DTs) in bolstering the circular economy (CE) transition in the construction industry, to speed up the attainment of sustainable development objectives.

A detailed literature review was undertaken to identify DTs that could influence CE transition and the benefits of these DTs in the CE transitioning efforts of the construction industry. Based on these, a survey questionnaire was formulated and administered to construction professionals using convenient sampling techniques. With a response rate of 49.42% and data reliability of over 0.800, the gathered data were analysed using frequency and percentage, mean item score, normalisation value, coefficient of variation, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance, analysis of variance and factor analysis.

This study found that the construction experts agreed that building information modelling, blockchain technology, RFID, drone technology and cloud computing are the leading DTs that have the potential to influence and speed up CE transition in construction. Also, six clusters of benefits of DTs in bolstering EC are quicken CE transition, proactive waste management, recycling and zero waste, data management and decision-making, enhance productivity and performance and resource optimisation.

Studies on the integration of DTs in CE transition are scarce and it is even lacking in the Nigerian context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to assess the role of DTs in CE transitioning in the Nigerian construction industry.

Management control is needed in international joint ventures (IJVs) for successful management and performance. While IJV management control and performance concept has been widely explored, in the construction sector, the core understanding of the design of the two concepts is still lacking. This has resulted in the neglect of important questions and directions for research and practice improvement. This study aims to conduct a critical survey of prior studies addressing the conceptualization of management control and performance in IJVs and to propose a framework for studying the performance implications of management control in international construction joint ventures (ICJVs).

Using Scopus database and search terms, a systematic desktop search was conducted to retrieve empirically related peer-reviewed papers for this study.

Drawing on the transaction cost, institutional and relational logic, the first inclusive hypothetical model for studying the relationship between different dimensions of management control mechanism and multiple performance criteria in ICJVs is presented. The model proposes a measurement method for both the management control and performance and explains how they can be established in ICJVs.

The proposed framework provides a methodology to understand the dynamics of management control and performance implications in ICJV. Specifically, uncovering the critical paths will assist ICJV frontliners to approach management control in a more holistic and systematic way to promote achievement of ICJV goals.

The study gives a firm ground to the construction industry, which is accurate and educational for related fields concentrating on several other forms of cooperative relationships.

Allocating risk in public–private partnership (PPP) projects based on public–private parties’ risk management (RM) capabilities is a condition for success of these projects. In practice, however, risks are allocated to these parties beyond their respective RM capabilities. Too much risk is often assigned to the private or public party, resulting in poor RM and costly contract renegotiations and terminations. This chapter proposes a methodology based on fuzzy set theory (FST) in which decision makers (DMs) use linguistic variables to assess and calculate RM capability values of public–private parties for risk events and to arrive at risk allocation (RA) decisions. The proposed methodology is based on integrating RA decision criteria, the Delphi method and the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) technique. The application of FSE allows for the introduction of linguistic variables that express DMs’ evaluations of RM capabilities. This provides a means to deal with the problems of qualitative, multi-criteria analysis, subjectivity and uncertainty that characterise decision-making in the construction domain. The methodology is outlined and demonstrated based on empirical data collected through a three-round Delphi survey. The public–private parties’ RM capability values for land acquisition risk are calculated using the proposed methodology. The methodology is helpful for performing fuzzy-based analysis in PPP projects, even in the event of limited or no data. This chapter makes the contribution of presenting a RA decision-making methodology that is easy to understand and use in PPP contracting and that enables DMs to track calculations of RM capability values.

This paper aims to identify and evaluate the most significant risk factors that strongly affect the implementation of public–private partnership (PPP) water supply projects. PPP for water supply infrastructure services has seen continued growth over the past two decades, following public sector’s budgetary constraints and inability to provide infrastructure-based water services efficiently and cost effectively. However, these projects are often subjected to major risks leading to failures.

Following extensive literature review and case study analyses, an international questionnaire survey was conducted with practicing and experienced PPP experts to establish the significant risks in PPP water projects. Both the probability of occurrence and severity of 40 risks were evaluated by the expert panel to determine their significance and impact on water projects procured under the PPP arrangement.

The paper presents a derived risk factor list, ranks the factors and describes the “top-ranked” risk factors as: poor contract design, water pricing and tariff review uncertainty, political interference, public resistance to PPP, construction time and cost overrun, non-payment of bills, lack of PPP experience, financing risk, faulty demand forecasting, high operational costs and conflict between partners.

This factor list broadens PPP stakeholders’ view of important project risks, rather than relying on culture-dependent studies – an area that has received less attention in PPP risk management research. The identified risk factors would provide governments and investors a useful tool in implementing constructive water PPPs by facilitating the development of risk mitigation strategies, particularly for developing countries with poor risk management practices.

This paper aims to report on the partial findings of a research project on risk allocation in public–private partnership (PPP) water projects. It identifies risk factors encountered in PPP water infrastructure projects, evaluates their associated risk levels and presents an authoritative risk factor list to assist the sector institutions to understand the important risks associated with such projects in Ghana.

A ranking-type Delphi survey was conducted to develop a rank-order list of critical risk factors.

Twenty critical risk factors with high impact on water PPPs were established. The top-five risks relate to foreign exchange rate, corruption, water theft, non-payment of bills and political interference.

Being the pioneering study, it holds implications for practitioners. By prioritising the risks according to their relative impacts on the success of water PPP projects, public and private participants will become more aware of and leverage efforts and scarce resources to address those significant factors with serious consequences on projects objectives. The paper adopts a research approach that can be used by future researchers in similar environments where PPP is novel and experts are hard to find.

The public‐private partnership (PPP) procurement approach enables the development and management of public infrastructure and services through leveraging private capital, management expertise, and creative commercial skills. This approach, pursued by the Ghanaian Government in the development and management of water supply services, contains a plethora of risks resulting from the complexity and dynamic interactions between municipal and central governments (pursuing monetary and political goals), public movements, private water operators, and international donors pursuing their own objectives. The paper seeks to increase awareness of the risks that can erode or reduce potential benefits of PPPs in the water supply sector.

A research approach integrating a literature survey and case study is adopted. A rigorous literature review of PPP risks is first undertaken. Based on six case studies carried out in the Ghanaian water supply sector, this paper identifies and categorises the risks specific to water supply PPP contracts in Ghana.

A total of 40 risk factors are identified, classified into eight categories based on their sources and their content presented in detail. Common risks which are worth practitioners' attention include weak regulatory and monitoring regime; financing; absence of risk allocation mechanisms; inexperience in PPPs; public opposition; delayed and non‐payment of bills, etc.

A comprehensive list of risks associated with water supply projects in Ghana has been identified. This list will aid practitioners, municipal and central government authorities, and the domestic and the (potential) international private sector audience in managing risks involved in such projects.