Oliveros Romero, Jose Alejandro (2019) Ex-post impact evaluation method for public-private partnership projects from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. PhD thesis, University of Melbourne, Australia.
Abstract
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model of procurement is a way to deliver public infrastructure using private funding and managing risk for public purposes. Currently, PPPs have been criticised in the media, social media and in the academic literature, notably regarding their limited contribution to real public welfare. The arguments are related to (1) the amount of profit that is conferred to the private entity, (2) the long-term implications for the public sector in term of service payments, (3) the quality of the service which can be driven by cost reduction goals; among others. From a taxpayer's point of view, the impact of PPP projects, like any kind of public investment, should be assessed and analysed, especially if a private company is making profit with it. One relevant instrument to protect the taxpayers' interest is an ex-post impact evaluation. The problem is that a PPP ex-post impact evaluation is difficult to perform because usually: (1) projects are large and complex, (2) there are different perceptions of the delivery and the impacts, (3) the time horizon for the evaluation in some cases is more than 20 years, and (4) there are political, economic, and ideological incentives that can create biases towards their evaluation. The problem to be addressed by this research is the lack of a method to evaluate, on an ex-post basis, the impact of an infrastructure PPP project from the perspective of multiple stakeholders. The arguments that support the problem are the existing criticism of PPPs regarding their performance for achieving public welfare, the nonexistence of a PPP ex-post evaluation method, and the difficulty associated with PPP evaluation due to their multiple perspectives from the different stakeholders. The research question is: How can ex-post impact evaluation of Public-Private Partnership projects be conducted employing the perspective of its multiple stakeholders? For developing the PPP ex-post impact evaluation method, a Design Science approach is adopted. Design Science differs from the traditional behavioural science approach because it aims to change nature by solving a problem through the design of an 'artefact'. The evaluation method is considered an artefact for the purpose of this research, grounded on the Project Success concept from the project management discipline. The outcome of the research is an ex-post impact evaluation method presented as a procedure with five steps: (1) evaluation setup, (2) stakeholder workshop preparation, (3) stakeholder workshop, (4) data analysis, and (5) evaluation conclusion. This research has a theoretical contribution by refining the concept of project as a project-system, and by proposing three high-level principles to inform a successful project. The research also has a practical contribution by delivering a documented evaluation method to assess existing PPP projects by systematically addressing their multiple perspectives towards them.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Aibinu, Ajibade |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | public-private partnership; project management; stakeholder management; ex-post impact evaluation; design science; qualitative research |
| Index terms: | cost reduction, stakeholder management, artefact, qualitative research, bias, profit, science, data analysis, project management, media, social media, funding, public sector, partnership, public infrastructure, project success, workshop |
| Subjects: | administrative law, infrastructure and transport systems, partnership management, sociology, probability and distributions, project management theory and practice, economics, participation process, technology adoption, data analysis and analytics, research design and methodology, economic analysis, specialized education, construction type |
| Topics: | Legal Issues, Education, Engineering Principles, Project Management, Digital Applications, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Construction Technology, Stakeholder Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here