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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.

Frequent renegotiations within public-private partnership (PPP) have been recognised and affect project efficiency. Literature has focussed on diverse issues associated with renegotiation within PPP, especially in Latin America and Europe. However, a systematic summary what they have already provided appears lacking. Thus, the paper aims to conduct a critical review of publications concerning PPP renegotiation and explore the status quo, future interests and gaps in research.

This study carried out a four-phase literature review research framework to identify the quality PPP-renegotiation articles published from 2003 to 2020. Assessing the full articles for eligibility by providing a structured summary including: background; objectives; data sources; study appraisal; results; limitations; conclusions and implications of key findings. After that, filtering papers associated with PPP renegotiation in terms of the structured summary, and a total of 60 research papers were selected in the database of web of science and Scopus for review.

Methods adopted by researchers, research topics and theoretical foundations of PPP renegotiation research in different disciplines were identified through content analysis. Amongst the popular research topics identified were renegotiation factors, the outcomes with renegotiations, the framework to deal with renegotiations and contract design dealing with renegotiation based on rigid or flexible contracts.

This study contributes to the current body of PPP knowledge by revealing the research trend in the past 20 years. It also points out the directions that the renegotiations of PPP research may go towards in the future. Moreover, this study is very valuable in understanding how governments and concessionaires effectively handle renegotiations.

Presently, existing electric car sharing platforms are based on a centralized architecture which are faced with inadequate trust and pricing issues as these platforms requires an intermediary to maintain users’ data and handle transactions between participants. Therefore, this article aims to develop a decentralized peer-to-peer electric car sharing prototype framework that offers trustable and cost transparency.

This study employs a systematic review and data were collected from the literature and existing technical report documents after which content analysis is carried out to identify current problems and state-of-the-art electric car sharing. A use case scenario was then presented to preliminarily validate and show how the developed prototype framework addresses the trust-lessness in electric car sharing via distributed ledger technologies (DLTs).

Findings from this study present a use case scenario that depicts how businesses can design and implement a distributed peer-to-peer electric car sharing platforms based on IOTA technology, smart contracts and IOTA eWallet. Main findings from this study unlock the tremendous potential of DLT to foster sustainable road transportation. By employing a token-based approach this study enables electric car sharing that promotes sustainable road transportation.

Practically the developed decentralized prototype framework provides improved cost transparency and fairness guarantees as it is not based on a centralized price management system. The DLT based decentralized prototype framework aids to orchestrate the incentivize monetization and rewarding mechanisms among participants that share their electric cars enabling them to collaborate towards lessening CO₂ emissions.

The findings advocate that electric vehicle sharing has become an essential component of sustainable road transportation by increasing electric car utilization and decreasing the number of vehicles on the road.

The key novelty of the article is introducing a decentralized prototype framework to be employed to develop an electric car sharing solution without a central control or governance, which improves cost transparency. As compared to prior centralized platforms, the prototype framework employs IOTA technology smart contracts and IOTA eWallet to improve mobility related services.

In the shipping industry, both sales and purchases of second-hand ships and freight transport services are prevalently tailormade and traded with intense bilateral negotiations. Price bargaining is the key step of this negotiation process and plays a crucial role in determining mutually agreed prices. Despite its cruciality and applicability, the price bargaining has yet received due conceptual and/or theoretical attention in the shipping literature. This paper attempts to conceptually examine the role of bargaining in shipping transaction prices and subsequently puts forward directions for future research. In doing so, the paper focuses on two types of transactions taking place in shipping markets: asset market trading of second-hand vessels and service market trading shipping freights.

The paper begins with a systematic literature review of price bargaining in the field of economics and management disciplines from a game-theoretic perspective. This approach does logically lead to the establishment of a conceptual framework for price bargaining in shipping sub-markets as a step toward having taken into consideration a variety of heterogeneities commonly present in trading activities and market dynamics.

A set of research areas has been consequently identified where price bargaining and mechanisms for the shipping freight and asset markets could be further explored and analyzed in a way to make better pricing decisions under a more tangible framework.

One of the critical challenges when using bargaining mechanisms to make a decision on pricing shipping services and assets is how to operationalize the study for empirical investigation as some of the factors are internal information of the players and are not adequately revealed to externals: that is, an imperfect information sharing case. The current study aims, however, not to conduct an empirical analysis but to initiate a conversation among maritime economists by bringing their attention to this not-yet fully explored and potentially impactful field of research and by asking them to treat bargaining from a perspective for pricing shipping assets and services. It is claimed that, by doing so, one could better understand price differences between individual contracts.

This study would be considered the first of its kind to provide a detailed survey of the bargaining theory and models from a game theoretical perspective as a theoretical lens to understand its importance and relevance in pricing shipping assets and services. It also provides a simplified operational case on utilizing bargaining in practically pricing freight services.

The organization of services can affect the adoption of sustainable practices within the relationship between a buyer (e.g. a shipper) and a supplier (e.g. a logistics service provider–LSP). The purpose of this paper is to analyse, within this relationship, the mechanisms affecting collaboration between shippers and LSPs towards adopting green logistics practices to reduce the negative environmental effects of logistics processes. The authors take the perspective of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which represent – although less investigated than large enterprises – a relevant field of investigation given their impact on the environmental sustainability of logistics processes.

The authors conducted a multiple case-study investigation on a set of dyads involving shippers and LSPs. The authors explored the antecedents shaping the approach to sustainability in logistics and, adopting the absorptive capacity (AC) theory, the learning and knowledge transfer processes leading to the adoption of green practices.

Collaboration between shippers and LSPs for better sustainability in logistics seems not to work when relationships are limited to simple annual (or pluriannual) contracts, and when shippers do not show ambition to improve the level of sustainability of their logistics processes (regardless of whether they show an interest in general sustainability matters). On the other hand, successful cases show higher commitment in the dyadic relationship with respect to improving logistics sustainability, good levels of communication and a more structured process of knowledge sharing, enabled by IT integration, shared performance monitoring, and creation of inter-organizational teams.

While most of the existing research focuses on the perspective of shippers or LSPs, this work is original since it explores collaborative mechanisms within a buyer-supplier relationship simultaneously taking the perspective of both parties, according to the lens of the AC. It identifies directions for improving collaboration within the shipper-LSP relationship in the context of SMEs to foster the adoption of collaborative green logistics practices to impact sustainability positively.

Technology is the lifeline for the logistics industry, and it has been immensely disrupted by the emerging blockchain technology. This paper has two main objectives. The first is to explore how the current blockchain technology can be implemented in the logistics industry with the aim of improving logistic services amongst the network of logistics service providers (LSPs). The second is to propose the development of a blockchain model for the small and medium logistics service supply chain.

A prototype blockchain-based logistics system has been created and tested in a case study with a real logistics company. The primary technologies for developing a blockchain model on the Hyperledger platform as well as how the system is designed based on the logistics service flow are explained.

The study has resulted in the successful implementation of the proposed prototype blockchain-based logistics system. In particular, the case company has managed to fully utilise the developed tracking and tracing system. Whilst utilising the prototype, the participants have been able to fulfil their responsibilities in an effective manner. The performance of LSPs has improved following the World Bank Logistics Performance Index (LPI) criteria.

This paper contributes to current research in the application of blockchain technologies in the domain of logistics and the supply chain to progress LSPs towards Logistics 4.0. The current frameworks for Logistics 4.0 and how blockchain as a disruptive technology revolutionises logistic services are reviewed. In addition, this paper highlights the benefits of blockchain technology that LSPs can leverage to further improve their performance based on the LPI criteria.

Visibility is the need of the hour for each organization involved in the supply chain, and scholars have made few previous efforts to understand patterns driving visibility in transportation platforms. However, many companies have not been able to achieve sufficient levels of practical implementation across the supply chain. Therefore, this study focuses on exploring, why the real-time visibility transportation platforms fail to operationalize.

This study utilizes action research as a methodology for pragmatism to understand supply chain professionals' viewpoint regarding the operationalization of real-time visibility. The research addresses a complex transportation network of a fast-moving consumer goods company. Wherein, both a greater need for visibility and improvements are also more challenging.

Tensions amongst complementors, the platform owner, and the Control Tower of a focal company explain the different impacts of freight forwarders and own fleet carriers on shipment compliance. Integrating subcontractors is a cost-intensive practice for complementors that increases asymmetry and reduces co-created value. The willingness of freight forwarders to exert control contributes to tension competition versus collaboration.

The model identifies the dynamics that explain how managers can navigate the tension over time by controlling contradictory loops driving shipment compliance. Findings can help managers develop plans, conduct pilots, and collaborate to unlock value from real-time visibility. The research findings can be informative for the European Union bodies and help work out a policy that reduces the asymmetry of benefits and contribute to the more sustainable development of digital industrial platforms.

The contribution lies in (1) providing a study of the factors affecting achieving real-time visibility, (2) distinguishing complementors (3) identifying tensions amongst complementors and platform owner as critical for successful platform deployment, (4) conceptualizing a pattern of behavior emerging amongst the platform partners and (5) outlining avenues for future research.

Whilst green distribution alternatives for consumers have the potential to decrease environmental impact from logistics, retailers struggle to provide such alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the factors that hinder retailers from offering green distribution alternatives to consumers.

The paper relies on a multiple case-study of three cases, with one retailer constituting each case. Semi-structured interviews with seven respondents and visits to the retailers' checkouts were used for data collection.

The offering of green distribution alternatives is a complex task for retailers, with barriers related to six categories (organisational, financial, retailer-logistic service provider (LSP) market, retailer-consumer market, governmental and technological barriers) obstructing the way forward. A process towards offering green distribution services, including barriers and potential mitigation strategies, is suggested.

The study is limited to a Swedish context, and further research could consider how barriers would manifest themselves in countries with other characteristics.

A framework with barriers and mitigation strategies offers guidance for managers within e-commerce.

The greening of logistics is an important quest towards world-wide sustainability goals, and this paper contributes with an increased understanding of how to decrease environmental impact from e-commerce distribution.

The paper is one of few that takes the consumer side of the greening of logistics into account, thus contributing with valuable perspectives to this scarce body of literature.

The purpose of this paper is to understand if and how industrialized house building (IHB) could support productivity developments for housebuilding on project and industry levels. The take is that fragmentation of construction is one explanation for the lack of productivity growth, and that IHB could be an integrating method of overcoming horizontal and vertical fragmentation.

Singe-factor productivity measures are calculated based on data reported by IHB companies and compared to official produced and published research data. The survey covers the years 2013–2020 for IHB companies building multi-storey houses in timber. Generalization is sought through descriptive statistics by contrasting the data samples to the used means to control vertical and horizontal fragmentation formulated as three theoretical propositions.

According to the results, IHB in timber is on average more productive than conventional housebuilding at the company level, project level, in absolute and in growth terms over the eight-year period. On the company level, the labour productivity was on average 10% higher for IHB compared to general construction and positioned between general construction and general manufacturing. On the project level, IHB displayed an average cost productivity growth of 19% for an employed prefabrication degree of about 45%.

Empirical evidence is presented quantifying so far perceived advantages of IHB. By providing analysis of actual cost and project data derived from IHB companies, the article quantifies previous research that IHB is not only about prefabrication. The observed positive productivity growth in relation to the employed prefabrication degree indicates that off-site production is not a sufficient mean for reaching high productivity and productivity growth. Instead, the capabilities to integrate the operative logic of conventional housebuilding together with logic of IHB platform development and use is a probable explanation of the observed positive productivity growth.

This study aims to develop a Stackelberg Game Model for seeking the optimal subsidy plans with varying levels of government financial capability (GFC). Furthermore, the scenario-based analysis is conducted and will enable governments to identify a comprehensive subsidy plan as follows: improve project performance and optimise social welfare.

A Stackelberg Game Model is developed to optimise the effectiveness of subsidies on the performance of public-private partnerships (PPPs).

According to the scenarios that are generated from the model, governments that are confronting with limited public budgets could reduce the intensity of performance incentives and increase the participation-oriented subsidy. Whilst a participation-oriented subsidy can stimulate private organisations’ willingness to participate in infrastructure PPPs, a performance-oriented subsidy is capable of facilitating the projects’ performances. Intuitively, the performance-oriented subsidy enables the private entities of PPPs to improve their efforts on the projects to realise higher profits. However, the participation-oriented subsidy is unable to affect the level of their effort spent on the projects. To satisfy both parties’ expectations in a PPP, the performance-oriented subsidy needs to be prioritised for a purpose of enabling higher quality outputs.

The game model developed in this study contributes to the literature by offering new insight into the underlying mechanism of governments and private entities, in terms of their decision-making for subsidy planning and contributions (i.e. resource allocation and spending) during the life-cycle of PPPs. This research enriches the government subsidy model by revealing the effects of the GFC and clarifies the impacts of two different schemes of subsidy on the performance of PPPs.

The government has been conventionally viewed as being omnipotent to provide PPPs with a wide range of subsidies. However, the subsidies are not unlimited, due to GFC. In addressing this void, this study has modelled the impacts of government subsidy plans with a consideration of GFC-related constraints. The combined effects of the participation- and performance-oriented subsidies on the project performance of PPPs have been examined.