Exploring the networks of organizations that enable and govern infrastructure public-private partnerships: An organizational field-level perspective

The use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development has received significant scholarly attention of late. Much of this attention emanates from a recognition of the challenges inherent in this move towards greater private participation in infrastructure delivery. Scholars agree that PPPs require new types of public sector capacity from governments in order to address these challenges. Unfortunately the locus and structure of this new capacity remain poorly understood. In this dissertation I propose that the need for this "PPP enabling capacity" has not been addressed by a reformation of public agents alone. Rather, a network of new "enabling organizations" (public, private and non-profit) has emerged in response to the emergent need for new capacity. Adopting the concept of "organization field" from institutional theory, I define this network of organizations as the "PPP-enabling field." I employ a qualitative case-based methodology to investigate the novel concept of the "PPP-enabling field" by looking at three leading cases of PPP-enabling fields: the Canadian province of British Columbia, the Australian state of Victoria, and South Africa. My analysis consists of three main parts. First, I examine these three fields in some detail. I identify differences in various field attributes, including the salient organizational actors, specific roles and responsibilities, dominant institutional logics (cognitive frames and ways of thinking) in the field, and the governance arrangements that guide action in the fields. Next, I turn to historical accounts of field formation in each of the three cases in an attempt to explain the reasons for the observed differences. Finally, I consider the impacts of these field differences on the overall "success" of PPP enablement in a region. To do this, I identify various measures of PPP program "success" and theorize about the linkages between PPP-enabling field characteristics and PPP program outcomes. This dissertation contributes to a more complete understanding of PPP-enablement by delineating, in some detail, contemporary forms of PPP-enabling fields. In this way I move beyond the normative approach that characterizes so much of the current literature on PPPs, to show how and why PPP-enabling fields emerge quite differently in different countries, and to propose functional and outcome implications of the field differences.