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Article
Publication date: 4 January 2017

Wouter Thierie and Lieven De Moor

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the constraints related to developing small-scale public-private partnerships (PPPs) and how to reduce them.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the constraints related to developing small-scale public-private partnerships (PPPs) and how to reduce them.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper provides a general review of the characteristics of small-scale PPPs and identifies overarching concerns.

Findings

The paper finds for small-scale PPPs constraints with respect to the definition, government processes and procedures, transaction costs, public capacity and institutional structure; important issues of transaction costs, minimum size requirement and increasing popularity and recommendations for further development.

Practical implications

Since most small PPPs are conducted by cities and regional governments, many local bodies would benefit from a better understanding of small-scale projects, helping to develop standard documentation, which is especially relevant for small-scale projects given their relatively large transaction and bid costs, supporting the long-term growth of small PPPs.

Originality/value

Small-scale PPPs have different characteristics compared with large projects and these characteristics should be studied separately. Although the benefits of small-scale projects are undeniable, relatively few have been undertaken relative to the substantial requirement. A more thorough understanding of the constraints related to developing small-scale PPPs and how to reduce them would help the subset of small projects to reach its full potential. This paper serves as a first step, clearing the ground for further research in specific areas.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 10 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2015

Steven De Schepper, Elvira Haezendonck and Michaël Dooms

The purpose of this paper is to offer a systematic assessment of the magnitude of transaction costs of public infrastructure delivery, based on the three attributes of transaction…

1240

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to offer a systematic assessment of the magnitude of transaction costs of public infrastructure delivery, based on the three attributes of transaction costs, being the asset specificity, uncertainty and frequency of a transaction.

Design/methodology/approach

Non-parametric tests were used to test the transaction cost differences between different procurement types.

Findings

The authors find empirical support, based on a sample of 172 public infrastructure projects in Belgium, that construction firms make higher relation specific investments to their transaction partners under a public-private partnership (PPP) than a under a traditional public procurement (TPP). In addition, the authors found that PPP transactions are burdened by a greater uncertainty and a less mature market than TPP transactions.

Research limitations/implications

Given the complexity of this research, the scope is limited to: a strict distinction between two procurement types, one geographical area, a limited time scope and a focus on the private sector. Hence, the authors suggest that further research broadens the scope of either one of these aspects in order to get a better understanding of the total transaction cost burden of the public infrastructure market.

Practical implications

This study offers policy makers form a better understanding of the transaction cost implications when evaluating different procurement types.

Originality/value

This paper serves as one of the first systematic comparative analyses of the magnitude and determinants of transaction costs for the delivery of public infrastructure.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 February 2009

Georg Caspary

The purpose of this paper is to compare the stringency of different types of public financing institutions' safeguard mechanisms in the financing of large dams in developing

2116

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare the stringency of different types of public financing institutions' safeguard mechanisms in the financing of large dams in developing countries. It seeks to do so by examining: the institutional strategies and policies currently in place in a set of key public financing institutions; and project‐level case studies of dams financed by these institutions and the stringency with which existing policies are applied by the key financing institutions. It aims then to cite the key factors determining why the “safeguard‐performance” between these types of financing institutions differs and what the implications are for leaders working to effect improvements in these areas.

Design/methodology/approach

The study compares the safeguard mechanisms of two types of financing institutions by applying a set of benchmark criteria to both existing strategy and policy documents and to the actual application of those policies at the project level, through correspondence, interviews, and site visits.

Findings

The study argues that leaders may make a difference on improving the sustainability performance gap in the financing of large dams – with more difficulty in those cases where the current gap is mainly to be explained by “systemic” factors; and arguably with more ease in cases where the current gap is caused mostly by other factors.

Research limitations/implications

The study leads to the above findings for the case of public financing institutions and large infrastructure projects (with a focus on dams). To make for greater generalisability of the findings, future research should complement this work by focusing on private financing institutions and on the financing of other types of projects.

Practical implications

Large infrastructure projects have massive social and environmental impacts, and public financial institutions have a large stake in determining the sustainability (or otherwise) of these projects. The paper seeks to help make large infrastructure investments more sustainable by providing guidance to leaders as to where and how sustainability aspects could best be integrated in financing decisions for these projects.

Originality/value

The value added lies in helping leaders define where sustainability efforts in large infrastructure finance are warranted – and where, conversely, they represent largely wasted efforts.

Details

Corporate Governance: The international journal of business in society, vol. 9 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-0701

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 22 October 2019

Djoen San Santoso and Polwatta Gallage Madusha Piumal Gallage

This paper aims to analyse the factors affecting the performance of large construction projects in Sri Lanka. The causes, impacts and mitigations in association with the critical…

1169

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyse the factors affecting the performance of large construction projects in Sri Lanka. The causes, impacts and mitigations in association with the critical factors are explored and discussed.

Design/methodology/approach

The research focuses on the evaluation and perspectives of clients and contractors of large projects in Sri Lanka. Combined quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in this research. Initially, a questionnaire survey was conducted with clients and contractors involved in large projects to evaluate the factors affecting the performance of projects and to identify the ten most critical factors. Interviews with the clients and contractors of three large projects were conducted to examine the causes and impacts of the critical factors and the approaches used to mitigate them.

Findings

Significant differences in the factors were observed for more than 40 per cent of the total factors under study, the contractors assigning more weight to most of the factors than the clients. The study identified nine internal factors and one external factor as the critical factors. Of these, seven were related to the contractors, which suggested that the contractors have greater roles in defining performance. Lack of management and technical skills of the parties involved, human capacity, lack of understanding and knowledge of the local context, changes in government policies and political interference were identified as significant causes of the critical factors.

Originality/value

The study analysed the factors affecting the performance of large projects in Sri Lanka, which, at the time of research, had just ended a 26-year-long civil war and was pushing the construction of large projects to be competitive. The challenges faced in this effort were explored as lessons learnt that might improve the efficiency and effectiveness of infrastructure development in Sri Lanka. The combined quantitative and qualitative methods applied in this study are expected to provide new insights in the project performance research, especially the interviews of the critical factors to gain an understanding on how the factors occurred and manifested themselves in real projects. The findings are, however, expected to be applicable to other developing countries that are currently aggressively developing their large infrastructure.

Details

Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology , vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1726-0531

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 September 2023

Haiyi Zong, Guangbin Wang and Dongping Cao

As the foundation of social and economic development, infrastructure development projects are characterized by large initial investment, high technical requirements and thus…

Abstract

Purpose

As the foundation of social and economic development, infrastructure development projects are characterized by large initial investment, high technical requirements and thus generally delivered through complex contractor–subcontractor collaboration chains. This study aims to characterize the complexity of collaborative networks between contractors and subcontractors for infrastructure development through comparing the structural characteristics and the formation mechanisms of contractor–subcontractor collaborative networks for the following two different types of infrastructure: public works (PWCN) owned and operated by government agencies, and public utilities (PUCN) owned and operated by nongovernment agencies.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the method of stochastic actor-oriented models and the longitudinal dataset of National Quality Award Projects in China during 2001–2020, this study compares how the structural characteristics of project-based collaborative networks between contractors and subcontractors for the two types of projects are different and how related micro-mechanisms, including both structure-based endogenous network effects and attribute-based exogenous homophily effects (institutional, organizational and geographical homophily), collectively underpin the formation of the networks.

Findings

The empirical results provide evidence that while the two networks are both characterized by relatively low levels of network density, PWCN is more globally connected around a minority of superconnected contractors as compared with PUCN. The results further reveal that compared with PUCN, the formation of PWCN is more significantly related to the structure-based anti in-isolates effect, suggesting that PWCN is more open for new entrant subcontractors. With regard to the attribute-based homophily effects, the results provide evidence that while both significantly and positively related to the effects of organizational (same company group) and geographical homophily (same location), the formation of PWCN and PUCN is oppositely driven by the institutional homophily effect (same ownership type).

Originality/value

As an exploratory effort of using network perspective to investigate the formation mechanisms of contractor–subcontractor relationships in the infrastructure development domain, this study contributes to a network and self-organizing system view of how contractors select subcontractors in different types of infrastructure projects. The study also provides insights into how contractor–subcontractor collaborative relationships can be better manipulated to promote the development of complex infrastructure in different contexts.

Details

Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0969-9988

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2017

Sundaravalli Narayanaswami

New services design and development are difficult to plan, execute, measure and evaluate. Particularly, new services that are capital-intensive and involve a long gestation and…

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Abstract

Purpose

New services design and development are difficult to plan, execute, measure and evaluate. Particularly, new services that are capital-intensive and involve a long gestation and development time are considered extremely risky. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a list of innovative practices in various managerial aspects in designing, planning and development of a large scale infrastructure intensive public transportation service. A contemporary new public transportation service development is discussed as evidence of proven and benchmarked criteria.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a technical paper, where theoretical foundations of best practices in new service development project are discussed and supported by practice-based evidences from a real-life urban transportation project. A case study approach is adopted with secondary data.

Findings

Worldwide during and after economic recession of 2008, several projects were stalled or abandoned. The inference through this work is that through efficient management practices, a large capital-intensive new service development project can be made successful even during a turbulent economy in a region marred by more challenges than elsewhere.

Practical implications

Several issues in large scale services development, such as urban transportation are domain specific. Some of the issues faced in urban transportation are common to several Gulf countries; therefore the policy guidelines, managerial practices and development strategies reported in this paper can be replicated in many of them. The commercial impact of the service project is a significant drive towards fuel conservation and to save huge amounts of productive time.

Social implications

Public transportation with a high quality of networked service improves the quality of life to a large extent. Unless certain measurable demands are not met, an affluent society is less likely to endorse public transportation. In addition, endorsement of public transportation is been promoted in several parts of the world as a drive towards a green, energy efficient, low-carbon emission and sustainable environment.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, new services planning and development is a key operations management topic, on which very little is written about. Particularly no other paper has presented a real-world large scale infrastructure intensive project development to this detail, and along with a theoretical background to benchmark performance and development practices.

Details

The International Journal of Logistics Management, vol. 28 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0957-4093

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 13 December 2021

Benjamin O.L. Bowles, Kate Bayliss and Elisa Van Waeyenberge

Despite the fact that recent anthropological interest in infrastructure has done much to illuminate the infrastructure asset as an assemblage of actors, technologies and ideas, an…

Abstract

Despite the fact that recent anthropological interest in infrastructure has done much to illuminate the infrastructure asset as an assemblage of actors, technologies and ideas, an interdisciplinary approach is required to unpack how the infrastructure project comes together as an assemblage and to define the role that financial technologies and discourses play in shaping it. Here, an interdisciplinary approach is applied to a novel infrastructure asset, London's Thames Tideway Tunnel, in order to show how multiple actors and visions of the world are brought together to make the infrastructure asset come to fruition. The paper concludes that this interdisciplinary approach to infrastructure can allow us to keep multiple sides of the infrastructure project in sight simultaneously. This includes both the creation of a rhetorical vision and spectacle around the asset, and the underlying financial arrangements that bind it together. If we do so, we can understand how new infrastructural forms utilise particular financial technologies and ideas to change the relationship between the public and the private, and between consumers and providers, and act towards the creation of a new ‘public good’ that normalises private provision.

Details

Infrastructure, Morality, Food and Clothing, and New Developments in Latin America
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-434-3

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 November 2013

Thillai Rajan Annamalai and Nikhil Jain

Privately financed infrastructure projects commonly use a project finance structure. Project finance is expected to facilitate investment flow in risky environments. The objective…

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Abstract

Purpose

Privately financed infrastructure projects commonly use a project finance structure. Project finance is expected to facilitate investment flow in risky environments. The objective of this paper examines the link between the use of project finance and investments in risky environments.

Design/methodology/approach

Project Finance International database has been used as the data source for this study. 3,372 transactions from power, oil and gas, transportation, telecommunication, and water supply sectors have been considered means analysis and multi-variate regression models have been used in the analysis.

Findings

The average project cost in a developing country was higher than that of developed countries. Gearing ratio, however, was higher in the developed countries. This indicated that the projects had a lower level of inherent risk, which enabled them to get funded at high gearing levels. The proportion of foreign banks in the syndicate was higher in the developing countries, which indicated that the use of project finance has helped to attract investment from foreign investors.

Practical implications

Practitioners and project development companies in the developing countries should actively consider using project financing technique for achieving financial closure of large infrastructure projects. Simultaneously, policy makers should create appropriate supporting institutional framework (regulatory, legal, contractual arrangements) that supports the use of project finance.

Originality/value

As far as the authors know, this study uses a dataset that has not been used in the previous studies. The results of this paper strengthen the understanding of project financing.

Details

Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, vol. 18 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-4387

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 6 February 2017

Nini Xia, Xueqing Wang, Ye Wang, Qiubo Yang and Xing Liu

Previous research has little specific guidance on how to improve large infrastructures’ risk analysis. This paper aims to propose a practical risk analysis framework across the…

Abstract

Purpose

Previous research has little specific guidance on how to improve large infrastructures’ risk analysis. This paper aims to propose a practical risk analysis framework across the project lifecycle with Bayesian Networks (BNs).

Design/methodology/approach

The framework includes three phases. In the qualitative phase, primary risks were identified by literature reviews and interviews; questionnaires were used to determine key risks at each project stage and causal relationships between stage-related risks. In the quantitation, brainstorming and questionnaires, and techniques of ranked nodes/paths, risk map and Bayesian truth serum were adopted. Then, a BN-based risk assessment model was developed, and risk analysis was conducted with AgenaRisk software.

Findings

Twenty key risks across the lifecycle were determined: some risks were recurring and different risks emerged at various stages with the construction and feasibility most risky. Results showed that previous stages’ risks significantly amplified subsequent stages’ risks. Based on the causality of stage-related risks, a qualitative model was easily constructed. Ranked nodes/paths facilitated the quantification by requiring less statistical knowledge and fewer parameters than traditional BNs. As articulated by a case, this model yielded very simple and easy-to-understand representations of risks and risk propagation pathways.

Originality/value

Rare research has developed a BN risk assessment model from the perspective of project stages. A structured model, a propagation network among individual risks, stage-related risks, and the final adverse consequence, has been designed. This research provides practitioners with a realistic risk assessment approach and further understanding of dynamic and stage-related risks throughout large infrastructures’ lifecycle. The framework can be modified and used in other real-world risk analysis where risks are complex and develop in stages.

Details

Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, vol. 15 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1726-0531

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 December 2018

Miia Maarit Martinsuo, Lauri Vuorinen and Catherine Killen

Infrastructure projects are expected to deliver value to their stakeholders long after completion. Project value is multi-dimensional and subjective and evolves over the project

Abstract

Purpose

Infrastructure projects are expected to deliver value to their stakeholders long after completion. Project value is multi-dimensional and subjective and evolves over the project lifecycle. How stakeholders frame the expected value is central to the public debate about proposed infrastructure projects and influences the financing decisions; however, this framing is inadequately understood. The purpose of this paper is to develop new knowledge for shaping infrastructure projects by identifying the ways in which stakeholders frame project value at the project front end.

Design/methodology/approach

Three transport infrastructure projects are compared in a qualitative, document-based study. The authors map the dimensions of value at the project front end and identify stakeholders’ approaches to lifecycle-oriented framing of value.

Findings

Financial, social and comparative values are dominant in the project front end. The authors frame value into positive and negative dimensions and identify four themes in the lifecycle-oriented framing of value, including uncertainties, timing of cost and benefit realization, project relations and external sponsorship.

Research limitations/implications

The research is limited through the focus on transport infrastructure projects and project front end only, the selection of cases from a single country and the use of document-based data. The systematic analysis approach has yielded novel analytical frameworks that will be useful for further research.

Practical implications

This study identifies value dimensions that are specific to transport infrastructure projects and proposes a framework to assist stakeholders and project managers to better assess and negotiate value when designing their projects.

Originality/value

Regional and comparative values are revealed as novel aspects of value specific to infrastructure projects. The alternative lifecycle-oriented frames offer a new way to understand and structure the co-creation of value and shape negotiation for investment decisions in the project. A portfolio perspective to investment decision making is proposed.

Details

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 12 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1753-8378

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 54000