Analysing managerial perceptions of when and how to structure public involvement in public-private partnerships

ABSTRACT

Previous research highlights what managers perceive to be the purposes of public involvement in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the need for addressing stakeholder concerns unique to PPPs. Yet, we have little evidence of how particular modes of participation benefit particular goals of participation in this context. Through canonical correlation analysis (CCA) of survey data collected in the U.S., this study examines the modes and sequencing of 14 public involvement activities in respect to 10 goals of public involvement in this context. The results indicate that selections among modes of participation are contingent upon when they are introduced. Respondents prefer widening stakeholder involvement early in the project development phase and during the contract implementation phase, but not during the later phases of contract design. Respondents also assign more value to engaging local citizens than their respective political leaders, particularly at mature stages of the PPP’s implementation phase.

KEYWORDS:

• Public-private partnerships
• public involvement
• local government
• stakeholder management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Much of this prior research has been conducted on the UK Government’s Private Finance Initiative, one of the longest-running PPP programs.

2. While there is some prior research on the ways partnership managers perceive the benefits of public involvement (Boyer, Van Slyke, and Rogers 2016), there is little understanding of how to select among participation modes in this context.

3. We define stakeholders as persons or groups who ‘must somehow be taken into account by leaders, managers, and front-line staff’ for a public program (Bryson 2004, 22).

4. Public involvement can also include a range of more cooperative relationships between government and citizens jointly implement public services through coproduction (Bovaird 2007; Ostrom 1996; Flinders, Wood, and Cunningham 2016), or partnership with local government (Thomas 2013). This study focuses on the spectrum of public involvement involved with informing and consulting constituents in the development of public services.

5. Tests of multicollinearity were acceptable, with maximum pairwise correlations among the variables less than .85 in both groupings, determinant of the correlation matrices sufficiently different from zero and no linear patterns detected when plotting all pairs of principal components. We find only four outliers in the data analysed pre-contract award, and six outliers in the data analysed post-contract award, which, when omitted, do not alter the findings. We find only four outliers in the data analysed post-contract award, and six outliers in the data analysed post-contract award, which, when omitted, do not alter the findings.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric J. Boyer

Eric J. Boyer is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the University of Texas at El Paso. He teaches graduate courses on organizational theory and behavior, social entrepreneurship and nonprofit management, contract management, public and nonprofit program evaluation, and economic analysis.

Juan D. Rogers

Juan D. Rogers is Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology. He teaches graduate courses on quantitative and qualitative research methods, multivariate statistics, science and technology policy, information policy and management, knowledge management, logic of policy inquiry and bureaucracy and policy implementation.

David M. Van Slyke

David M. Van Slyke is Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and the Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business-Government Policy.