Mediating Effect of Joint Action on Governing Complex Public Contracting

Abstract

Governments around the world frequently procure complex products, such as large transport projects (LTPs), from markets. This process can be regarded as a kind of complex public contracting (CPC) requiring a cross-boundary collaboration between public buyers and different market vendors. Nevertheless, scholars have yet to discover how to sustain the performance of these CPCs. Based on the survey data on LTPs in China, this study explores the varied effects of three CPC elements (namely, public agency involvement, specific contractual design, and relational management) on contracting performance using structural equation modeling. The results show that both specific contractual design and relational management directly contribute to contracting performance, whereas joint action mediates these relationships. Moreover, public agency involvement cannot contribute to contracting performance directly except through the mediation of joint action.

Keywords:

• Complex public contracting
• joint action
• public agency involvement

Acknowledgments

Special thanks go to Prof. Kaifeng Yang and three anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on the earlier version of this paper.

Notes

1 Despite significant efforts devoted to the empirical survey, the participants did not directly include senior officials from the involved public agencies. Instead, participants included senior executives who have close contact with officials in the buyer (owner) and vendor organizations, whose opinions might fully address the roles of the government and not affect the potential generality of the finding in LTPs.

2 This might indicate that a potential sample bias caused by project locations, types, and roles of respondents exists. To evaluate this issue, we conducted further analysis as follows. First, prior studies indicate that measures on external and internal complexities can address the potential impact of project locations and types (Kardes et al., 2013). Those two kinds of complexity, in combination with project roles have already been considered in control variables, and the analysis results indicated no significant impact, which may rule out this bias. Second, prior studies indicate that project types and roles of respondents might not affect the performance of surveyed projects (contracting performance) (Klijn et al., 2010).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant Number: 71971157].

Notes on contributors

Qixiong Xu

Qixiong Xu is a PhD student in the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. His research interest is on large project procurement.

Guangshe Jia

Guangshe Jia is a Professor in the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. His research interests mainly involve large project procurement and governance, sociology in engineering, and engineering philosophy.

Yi Hu

Yi Hu is an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics and Management at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. His research focuses are on infrastructure development, megaproject management, and organizational sociology.

Wei Xiong

Wei Xiong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He is a PPP expert in the National Development and Reform Commission of China. His current research interests are public-private partnerships, governance, and sustainability.