Search results

Minimal private participation for infrastructure development continues to affect developing economies like South Africa. This study aims to determine the perceived occurrence of challenges delaying the delivery of water infrastructure assets and the role of both public and private financing for infrastructure development.

Quantitative approach was used, and questionnaires were administered to stakeholders that have participated in delivering water infrastructure assets in South Africa. Of the 96 returned questionnaires, 91 were usable, representing 61 per cent response rate. Data from the survey were analysed using descriptive and exploratory factor analyses. The reliability test represented a value of 0.945, indicating internal consistency.

Data analysis revealed that corruption, hostility, weak project structuring, high fiscal deficits by state government, cost recovery constraints, high credit risk for private financing and unreliable planning and procurement processes are major challenges delaying the delivery of water infrastructure assets. More so, municipal government remains the key custodian of water infrastructure delivery with limited support from private capital as a result of political administrative instability, legislation and policy uncertainty and inadequate risk-adjusted returns.

Emphasis should be made on eradicating corruption and non-transparent financial management to improve municipal creditworthiness and amending and implementing much improved legislation and foreign inclusion. Additionally, financial models to complement the existing mechanisms of financing water infrastructure projects should be sought and used. Complete eradication of infrastructure challenges envisages to reduce fiscal deficits, improve service delivery and enhance the competitiveness and productivity of the economy.

The study identifies the challenges of developing the “electric vehicle (EV)” charging infrastructure in India, having an ambitious target of 30% EV adoption by 2030.

First, a systematic literature review determined EV adoption and challenges in the EV charging infrastructure development globally and specifically in India. Secondly, a focussed group study in which 10 domain experts were consulted to identify additional challenges in India's EV adoption involving EV charging infrastructure.

Accordingly, 11 significant challenges of EV charging infrastructure development in India have been identified–seven through the comparative analysis of the literature review and four from the focussed group study. Secondary data provides insight into the situation around developed countries and in developing countries, specifically in India. Finally, the Government of India's measures and priorities to facilitate such a development are emphasised.

The study can help policymakers/researchers understand the gaps and align measures to address the challenges. A focussed group study may have its limitations due to the perception of the experts.

The systematic literature review of 43 articles using comparative analysis and subsequently a focussed group study of experts to verify and add challenges has made the study unique.

As management innovations become more complex, infrastructure needs to change in order to accommodate new work practices. Different challenges are associated with work practice redesign and infrastructure change however; combining these presents a dual challenge and additional challenges associated with this interaction. The purpose of this paper is to ask: what are the challenges which arise from work practice redesign, infrastructure change and simultaneously attempting both in a single transformation?

The authors present a longitudinal study of three hospitals in three different countries (UK, USA and Canada) transforming both their infrastructure and work practices. Data consists of 155 ethnographic interviews complemented by 205 documents and 36 hours of observations collected over two phases for each case study.

This paper identifies that work practice redesign challenges the cognitive load of organizational members whilst infrastructure change challenges the project management and structure of the organization. Simultaneous transformation represents a disconnect between the two aspects of change resulting in a failure to understand the relationship between work and design.

These challenges suggest that organizations need to make a distinction between the two aspects of transformation and understand the unique tensions of simultaneously tackling these dual challenges. They must ensure that they have adequate skills and resources with which to build this distinction into their change planning.

This paper unpacks two different aspects of complex change and considers the neglected challenges associated with modern change management objectives.

Targets set out by state institutions, with respect to supplying water to deprived communities, seem to be idealistic and not realistic. Study envisioned to assess challenges of financing water infrastructure projects, and determines the role of the state towards infrastructure development by holistically planning and engaging with the private sector.

The study adopted a quantitative approach, whereby a questionnaire survey was conducted among different stakeholders involved in water infrastructure projects in South Africa. Data gathered were analysed using percentages, mean item score and standard deviation.

The study revealed that most challenges affecting the success of the financing of water infrastructure projects in South Africa are corruption, hostility towards private participation, cost recovery constraints, high fiscal deficits by state government, unreliable planning and procurement processes, and a rapid increasing number of municipalities that lack technical and administrative capacity to plan implement, operate and maintain water assets.

This research paper investigates projects’ financing challenges with a broad inspection on the role of the public sector. The apparent role of the international structures such as OECD, IMF and World Bank had no influence in the study. From the findings, it is clear that the central government and state institutions lack the necessary resources to accelerate infrastructure development, water infrastructure in particular. The study, thus, recommends a complete expansion and development of state capacity as well as improved collaborations with the private sector to drive the success delivery of services to the public.

Improved and flexible regulations and legislative guidelines are required to ensure that both sectors fulfil their side of the bargain, with an ultimate goal of meeting the predetermined targets of supplying adequate water to the deprived communities.

This study aims to understand the challenges of 5G deployment in India from the perspectives of telecom operators. These challenges are also mapped to different contexts within the technological-organizational-environmental (TOE) framework.

The study uses a qualitative approach comprising in-depth semi-structured interviews of employees working in telecom companies in India. Thematic analysis is used to analyse the qualitative data.

The author has identified nine challenges that are categorized under three dimensions of the TOE framework. Specifically, the findings indicate three technological challenges: hardware/device challenges, security concerns and limited use cases; two organization challenges: financial challenges and lack of skilled workforce; and four environmental challenges: inadequate infrastructure, regulatory and administrative challenges, consumers’ attitudes and competitive market conditions.

The results of this study would help understand the key factors that can act as barriers to the 5G rollout in India. Based on the findings of the study, the government and regulatory bodies could design conducive policies and regulatory frameworks to successfully deploy 5G in India.

The study is one of the very few studies to empirically examine the telecom operators’ perspectives on the challenges of 5G deployment in India. The study contributes to the TOE framework as its application in the context of identifying barriers to 5G deployment is probably for the first time.

The aim of this research is to better understand the decisions in infrastructure asset management at public agencies and the challenges of these agencies to improve the effectiveness of their decision making.

Based on a literature review on asset management at public agencies, a case study was used to investigate the decision making of a provincial agency in The Netherlands. A total of 12 semi‐structured interviews with employees of the agency were conducted, amended by an analysis of policy documents, maintenance contracts, inspection reports, and planning documents.

The research revealed that key challenges to achieving effective infrastructure asset management are: the establishment of alignment between infrastructure objectives, situation and intervention; the formulation of infrastructure objectives; and the management of multiple actors with different interests.

Public agencies should pay more attention to clearly defined infrastructure objectives which are consistent with the agencies' strategic policy goals and interests of multiple stakeholders. That also includes that public agents need to develop new skills and knowledge to cope with the various challenges of effective infrastructure asset management.

The research clustered decisions in infrastructure management into three decision areas and showed that effectiveness of the decision making is constituted through the interrelationship of these areas and depends on clearly defined objectives.

Information infrastructures can enable or constrain how companies pursue their visions of sustainability reporting and help address the urgent need to understand how corporate activity affects sustainability outcomes and how socio-ecological challenges affect corporate activity. The paper examines the relationship between sustainability reporting information infrastructures and sustainability reporting practice.

The paper mobilises a socio-technical perspective and the conception of infrastructure, the socio-technical arrangement of technical artifacts and social routines, to engage with a qualitative dataset comprised of interview and documentary evidence on the development and construction of sustainability reporting information.

The results detail how sustainability reporting information infrastructures are used by companies and depict the difficulties faced in generating reliable sustainability data. The findings illustrate the challenges and measures undertaken by entities to embed automation and integration, and to enhance sustainability data quality. The findings provide insight into how infrastructures constrain and support sustainability reporting practices.

The paper explains how infrastructures shape sustainability reporting practices, and how infrastructures are shaped by regulatory demands and costs. Companies have developed “uneven” infrastructures supporting legislative requirements, whilst infrastructures supporting non-legislative sustainability reporting remain underdeveloped. Consequently, infrastructures supporting specific legislation have developed along unitary pathways and are often poorly integrated with infrastructures supporting other sustainability reporting areas. Infrastructures developed around legislative requirements are not necessarily constrained by financial reporting norms and do not preclude specific sustainability reporting visions. On the contrary, due to regulation, infrastructure supporting disclosures that offer an “inside out” perspective on sustainability reporting is often comparatively well developed.

Infrastructure deficiency and supply disruption challenges are quite common among developing economies. While Sub-Saharan Africa is not unique to these challenges, it is the extent of levels of infrastructure deficiency and disruptions that affect the level of performance of small businesses. Literature on the performance of small businesses suggests both infrastructure availability and disruptions affect the performance of small businesses, but the effects on informal enterprises that operate from locations where the supply of infrastructure is weak are less documented. The paper, therefore, investigates the effects of four types of infrastructure supply in two dimensions of availability and disruption levels on the performance of informal enterprises in 12 Sub-Saharan African countries.

The study uses data from World Bank informal enterprises surveys based on a sample of 3 735 informal enterprises. The study uses the multiple analysis of variance method based on the World Bank's Informal Enterprise Surveys (IFS) country-level cross-sectional data collected between 2009 and 2019.

Results show infrastructure supply is quite low irrespective of the form of infrastructure. Infrastructure availability is associated with high supply disruptions. Infrastructure supply deficiency and disruption intensities are negatively associated with informal enterprises' performance. Finally, the effects of both infrastructure availability and supply disruptions are positively associated with informal enterprises' business activity levels.

Due to data limitations, only four types of infrastructure are captured in the analysis. A wider variety of types of infrastructure could improve the analysis.

Given the deficiency level of infrastructure and its implications on informal enterprise development, therefore, policy interventions aiming at addressing informal enterprises' challenges should focus on improving infrastructure supply deficiencies and disruption challenges. This paper provides the link between infrastructure levels, infrastructure supply disruptions and performance of the informal enterprises which is an essential starting point for policy intervention in informal enterprise development.

Infrastructure development and management form the central part of the government's commitment and responsibility to deliver essential services to the communities. However, much focus has been placed on the development aspect, with very little focus on the management and maintenance aspects, causing service delivery problems. This study explores the causes of poor management of immovable municipal infrastructure in South Africa.

A qualitative approach was adopted; thus, a sample of 15 participants consisting of senior municipal workers, local organizations and forums in Ngqushwa Municipality in Eastern Cape were identified and interviewed. The interview data were analyzed using thematic content analysis to determine the common themes and the frequencies.

The study's findings indicate numerous causes of poor municipal infrastructure management, including lack of funding, lack of capacity, poor planning and oversight, lack of By-laws, grant dependency and corruption. The municipality's failure to address these issues has resulted in increased service protests, destruction of public property, interruption of services and loss of confidence in municipal administrations.

Although the study concentrated on one municipality, the findings may be applicable to other South African municipalities.

To provide efficient services for the inhabitants to curtail aggravated service delivery protests, there is an urgent need for the municipalities to institute effective measures to manage and maintain the infrastructure that serves the communities.

The study has identified the factors underpinning ineffective management of the municipalities' facilities and the resultant's effects. Thus, the findings will guide the government and the authorities on the infrastructural management strategies for effective service delivery.

In classical perspective, projects under a certain size are not feasible for P3. However, there is an emerging trend on using P3 to deliver projects which are frequently at small- to medium- size to meet ever-increasingly complex social needs, including enhancing lifecycle performance of existing facilities, designing and building for resilience and sustainability, ensuring cost effectiveness of public spending and fostering innovation. In contrast with the increasing implementation, small and medium P3s, especially those in the United States, receive little attention in existing studies. This study aims at answering the question: in the context of US, what features of those small- to medium- sized P3s with success records enable the selection of P3 as delivery method.

By critically reviewing the literature, this study synthesizes and discusses the challenges in classical perspective. The authors use a framework drawn from the transaction cost to propose two types of enabling features that could contribute to the success of small and medium P3s. The proposed enabling features are supported by case study of twelve identified small- to medium- sized P3s which have reached financial closure as of 2018 in the United States.

The results show how the identified enabling opportunities have been used in these cases to enhance the viability of the P3 model in the infrastructure market. The two types of features are high tolerance enabler explained by the expectations on indirect and non-monetary compensations, and cost reduction enablers including: (1) being in the sectors with well-established traditions on using private investments; (2) having developers with expertise on infrastructure finance; (3) being in the jurisdictions with favorable legislative environment and (4) having less-uncertain future project revenue.

This study, for the first time, critically examines the enabling features of the P3 model for delivering small and medium infrastructure projects in the United States. This research sheds light on the credibility and viability of small- to medium- sized P3 and increases the confidence in policy makers to promote this model.