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Based on the theoretical background of stakeholder capitalism, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the scientific debate on the topic of public–private partnerships (PPPs), considering in particular how this governance structure relates to the pursuit of sustainable development. Specifically, this objective will be pursued with a focus on stakeholder relations and governance aspects, to highlight enablers and barriers in change for sustainability.

The systematic literature review is applied starting with the use of keywords in Web of Science, which leads to the extrapolation of 629 articles on the topic of “PPP and sustainability”. Subsequently, through various skimming steps, 75 papers are sampled. A mixed (quantitative-qualitative) approach is then followed: a co-word semantic network to identify the pattern of discourse and a more in-depth and explanatory analysis of the papers. These quantitative and qualitative tools synergistically work together to evidence the main aspects related to the aim of the paper.

With reference to the governance structure and stakeholders of PPPs, the analyses highlight the shift towards a triadic type of relational governance that considers stakeholders (especially the community) in addition to public–private partners. This can improve the partnership's performance (particularly in sustainable development) and social legitimacy. With reference to the role of PPPs in the implementation of sustainable development, they have positive potential in terms of implementing sustainability and raising stakeholder awareness of it. Nevertheless, PPPs may entail risks to the implementation of sustainability. The findings lead to some concluding remarks on future research opportunities.

The research leads to some managerial implications, such as the need to follow a competitive collaboration approach among stakeholders, to develop relational governance skills and related managerial tools and to incorporate sustainability aspects starting from the design of PPPs.

The originality aspect of this research is the consideration of a PPP by relating it to the pursuit of sustainability. Such an inter-organizational structure could be suitable to deal with the complexity inherent in the implementation of sustainability and is peculiar in terms of governance and stakeholder relations, considering that it is characterised by the presence of several partners of different nature (public and private).

Communication within a public organization is a fundamental aspect considering its contribution both to organizational well-being and – as highlighted by recent literature – to the improvement of relations with external users. This paper aims at analyzing the relevance of different dimensions of communication and the relationship between communication and citizens' satisfaction.

The study is based on data collected through questionnaires (303; 86%) filled in by the public personnel of an Italian local government to verify the communication dimensions relevance. The authors applied the OLS method to test the relationship between communication dimensions and citizens' satisfaction (deriving from the municipality's customer satisfaction survey system, which collected 3,708 questionnaires).

The authors show that four of the five communication dimensions considered are particularly relevant and that two of them (“interpersonal communication” and “organizational communication”) positively influence the level of satisfaction of users of local public services (citizens' satisfaction), also countering the negative perception of certain sectors (e.g. taxes and local taxation, traffic police). The conclusion also highlights some limitations of the work.

The study brings new insights into the impact of communication (as an element of public employee well-being) on citizen satisfaction, leading to some useful implications for public managers.