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Despite the widespread study and application of public-private partnerships (PPPs) since the 1980s, the field lacks a universally accepted definition that captures the concept's complexity. This study aims to offer a definition and foster a more substantive and comprehensive discourse on PPPs to improve communication and understanding between academics and practitioners from diverse disciplines and legislative backgrounds.

Grounded in the family-resemblance concept proposed by German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, this study conducts a comprehensive literature review to identify core and non-core elements frequently cited in PPP descriptions. The authors used these findings to develop the PPP sunflower model as a structured framework for defining PPPs.

The analysis elucidates six core elements consistently present in PPP descriptions: clarity of roles and responsibilities, appropriate risk allocation and sharing, injection of expertise and resources, cooperation and teamwork, a bundle of services, and long-term contracts. Coupled with identified non-core elements, these core components comprise the PPP sunflower model, a structured framework for defining PPPs that accommodates their multi-faceted nature.

The PPP sunflower model distinguishes itself as a unique contribution to the PPP literature. It offers a rigorous theoretical framework that can elucidate the complexity of PPPs for various stakeholders. The model serves as a practical tool for evaluating the authenticity and viability of PPP projects. The study's novelty lies in its adoption of the family-resemblance concept, thereby providing a comprehensive, multi-dimensional framework that enhances the understanding of PPPs across different disciplines and legislative contexts.

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).

China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

The purpose of this paper is to rank critical risks and determine major categories of risks to be considered by public–private partnerships (PPPs) investors when investing in “smart” transportation infrastructure. Such investment is sorely needed in many mega cities around the world currently suffering from serious impacts of traffic congestion, pollution and lack of usability of transport systems.

The study used literature review focused upon smart transportation infrastructure projects financed by PPP arrangements to create a questionnaire which was refined by subject matter experts and then completed by 126 experienced respondents. Exploratory factor analysis was used to create major categories emerging from the collected data. Interviews with ten experts were used to validate the findings.

The most highly major ranked risks shared by these participants were lack of expertise in complex project implementation, political interference, lack of PPP project data and lack of a collaboration mechanism between government and private sectors. Factor analysis showed that in terms of risk likelihood, stakeholder engagement, implementation process issues, the natural environment, data-sharing and technology complexity emerged. In terms of risk impact, major factors were stakeholder engagement, trust versus resistance issues, the natural environment and factors concerning uncertainty.

This paper addresses a somewhat unexplored area, the risks involved in investing in PPP smart transportation infrastructure. Such infrastructure projects are embedded in their environments, and approaches using a complexity lens can emerge overriding risk concerns for investors when undertaking such projects.

Global crises have become increasingly recurrent events that jeopardize public-private partnerships (PPPs). In this context, the purpose of this paper is to expose the PPP-crisis research agenda by combining bibliometric and network analyses.

The PPP literature associated with global crises between the 2008 global financial crisis and 2022 was analyzed in three stages: (1) paper selection and screening for the inclusion/exclusion of articles relevant to this research, (2) semantic network development for examining thematic relationships among selected papers by considering the co-occurrence of keywords within the chosen studies and (3) calculation of network metrics for analysis.

The paper identified six research avenues for the PPP-crisis agenda: public interest, relational governance, risk management, user-pay PPPs, crisis management and financial performance. The PPP-crisis literature has spread significantly in the last five years driven by the case study approaches on a national or regional basis. Conversely, non-crisis periods generate room to strengthen user-pay PPPs and relational governance. The pandemic and post-pandemic times shared the priorities of the 2008 financial crisis but also strengthened the management of the risks and the structural drivers of the global crisis.

This study demonstrates that during global crisis periods, the public interest and financial performance gain relevance in a detriment of structural solutions to social legitimacy erosion of PPPs because of the urgency of giving tools to the public and private sectors to tackle the financial issues, which steer future issues for PPPs.

In comparison to other countries, power generation in Sub-Saharan Africa is poor. The demand for power has surged in recent times and continues to increase at a fast rate. The public–private partnership (PPP) model has been identified as an option to address the challenges in the power sector. The purpose of this research paper is to critically explore the reasons for entering into PPP power projects in Ghana by the public and private parties.

Questionnaires were used to elicit responses from respondents using a two-round Delphi survey. From 60 respondents contacted in round one, 48 responses were obtained, and these 48 respondents further took part in round two. Mean score ranking was used to rank the reasons for entering into PPP power projects, while analysis of variance (ANOVA) was run to test significant difference in perceptions among the respondents.

From round 2 of the Delphi survey, the significant reasons for public sector entering into PPP power projects were as follows: achieving improved value for money, access to additional capital, increased certainty of projects and greater efficiency of project delivery services. For private sector, most significant reasons were as follows: obtaining of investment support, improvement in private sector’s international image and synergy with public sector. From ANOVA analysis, there were significant different perceptions among some of factors on the respondent profile variables and the reasons for entering into PPP power projects, while other factors did not have significant different perception.

Significant reasons for both public and private sectors identified would be incorporated by the government when PPP policy guidelines and laws are reviewed. This will aid in the effective implementation of PPP for power projects.

The widespread lockdown restrictions brought by the global COVID-19 epidemic inculcated a culture of “work-from-home”. However, most rural areas lack reliable and effective community amenities including transportation, health and education, thereby impeding healthy living and productive employment. Therefore, the underlying goal of this research is to investigate the development of smart infrastructure (SI) in non-urban areas. However, governments' resource limitations must be addressed to develop SI, which urges the research on the potential for public-private partnerships (PPP) to supplement public sector resources when necessary.

This paper examined and evaluated the “benefits and enablers” and “barriers” to deploying PPPs to create SI in non-urban areas, using a thorough literature review, five expert interviews and analytic hierarchy process (AHP)-based questionnaire responses. The AHP technique and content analysis were used to analyse the results and generate the conclusions.

The availability of a favourable investment climate and legal framework were identified as the significant factors among the “benefits and enablers” of adopting PPP in SI developments in non-urban areas, while low community acceptance of the private sector involvement, and community culture and values were identified as the significant factors among the “barriers”. These highlight the significance of removing barriers connected to community culture and “values”.

The findings and conclusions of this study provide a strong foundation to support the growth of SI in non-urban settings, facilitating more sustainable development that is more evenly distributed in the post-COVID-19 future.

The application of circular economy (CE) has received wide coverage in the built environment, including public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects, in recent times. However, current studies and practical implementation of CE are largely associated with construction demolition, waste and recycling management. Few studies exist on circular models and success factors of public infrastructures developed within the PPP contracts. Thus, the main objective of this article is to identify the models and key success factors associated with CE implementation in PPP infrastructure projects.

A systematic review of the literature was undertaken in this study using forty-two (42) peer-reviewed journal articles from Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and PubMed.

The results show that environmental factors, sustainable economic growth, effective stakeholder management, sufficient funding, utilization of low-carbon materials, effective supply chain and procurement strategies facilitate the implementation of CE in PPP infrastructure projects. Key CE business models are centered around the extension of project life cycle value, circular inputs and recycling and reuse of projects.

Although the study presents relevant findings and gaps for further investigations, it has a limited sample size of 42 papers, which is expected to increase as CE gain more prominence in PPP infrastructure management in future.

The findings are relevant for decision-making by PPP practitioners to attain the social, economic and environmental benefits of transitioning to circular infrastructure management.

This study contributes to articulating the key models and measures toward sustainable CE in public infrastructure development.

After completion of the case study, the students will be able to gain knowledge on public–private partnerships (PPPs) in emerging markets; understand how to apply the sensing element of the dynamic capabilities framework in analysing context, especially in emerging market context; and understand how to apply the dynamic capabilities framework to the process of developing brand equity.

On 20 March 2020, in Johannesburg South Africa, Dr Barbara Jensen Vorster, the head of corporate communications and marketing at the Gautrain Management Agency, was considering her dilemma of how to manage stakeholders at a time when the patronage guarantee was under question. The nature of the Gautrain PPP transport contract entailed a revenue guarantee that was called a patronage guarantee. How did they build their Gautrain brand equity during the Gautrain PPP patronage guarantee controversy? This case study highlights the perspectives of multiple stakeholders which places the Gautrain brand equity under strain. The Gautrain brand identity was created to project an integrated, overarching brand position for the construction project and later the operating company. The logo illustrated Africanisation, and the slogan “For People on the Move” represented a modern collaborative approach. Upholding the status of the brand is an important quest for the corporate communications and marketing team, and therefore the issue around the patronage guarantee must be addressed. This case study illustrates contrasting views about the Gautrain being elitist versus the rapid rail train enabling economic prosperity. The pro-prosperity versus pro-economic development values were at the heart of the different opinions around the patronage guarantee. Students are therefore confronted with their own values while the case study aims to drive an awareness or consciousness around these issues in an emerging market.

This case study is appropriate for advanced undergraduate and Master of Business Administration courses focused on marketing, communications and/or stakeholder management, such as in business and society courses. At both levels, the case study will be valuable in generating discussion on communications models and how to manage stakeholders ranging from government to community representatives. In courses where dynamic capabilities theory is taught, this case study will offer a specific application of this model in the context of brand communications and building brand equity in times of controversy.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) are crucial to the procurement of global infrastructure projects. Moreover, a price mode based on a cluster of core concessionary items is key to the delivery of value-for-money and successful project outcomes. However, existing research has yet to fully identify PPP concessionary items, nor yet described the range of practical price modes. This study provides taxonomy of core concessionary items impacting PPP projects, systematically classifies price modes, and assesses the applicability and risk impacts of those price modes on PPP projects.

This study adopts a comparative case study method in analyzing core concessionary items and alternative price modes. China is taken as the context, as it is one of the world’s largest PPP markets. In ensuring research validity and reliability, diverse data sources are utilized, with a graphic content analysis tool developed to capture the structure of price modes.

Eight PPP price modes are identified. These are: (1) UP (Unit Price) mode, (2) ALS (Annual Lump Sum) mode, (3) IRR (Internal Rate of Return) mode, (4) RP (Return for Investing Capital (RIC) - Profit Rate of O&M (PROM)) mode, (5) RFP (RIC - Financing Interest Rate (FR) - PROM) mode, (6) RFPL (RIC - FR - PROM - Lower Limit of User Charge (LLoUC)) mode, (7) RFL (RIC - FR - Lump Sum/Fixed Unit Price O&M Contract (LSOM/FUP)) mode, and (8) RFLL (RIC - FR - LSOM/FUP - LLoUC) mode. Other main findings are as follows: (1) Five risk allocation configurations can be achieved via these price modes. Yet while different price modes enable the allocation of specific risks, these do not always align with contracting parties’ original intentions. (2) IRR and RP modes may be less applicable in general because of their vulnerability in allocating critical risks and capacity for spurring opportunistic behavior.

By depicting the paths by which concessionary items in price modes affect cash flow, a systematic analysis of price modes was conducted exposing structural characteristics, along with risk allocation choice implications. The study is unique in: (1) Providing a systematic classification of PPP price modes used in PPP projects, (2) Presenting a comprehensive identification and streamlining of concessionary items in PPP practice, and (3) Analyzing the risk effects of different price modes. Together, these outcomes offer a hitherto unavailable perspective on PPP project risk management. The value of the study lies in the following: (1) Existing studies employ diverse concessionary items, but their applicability varies. This study offers an overarching framework facilitating decision-making in selecting appropriate PPP price modes and in determining concessionary items. (2) This study adds to the understanding of PPP price modes in significant ways that will aid local governments and potential sponsors in crafting and administrating more workable contract designs.