Kuitert, L; Volker, L and Hermans, M (2018) The impact of shifting values on the role and responsibilities of the construction client in delivering public goods. In: Gorse, C and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2018, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK.
Abstract
In today’s construction industry we witness an increase in public private collaboration in the delivery of public services, partly due to financial reasons and partly because of strategic issues such as innovation and effectiveness. By transferring operational responsibility to private suppliers, fewer possibilities exist to directly influence and steer the outcomes of these processes. Socio-political responsibilities, however, remain with public parties, requiring other kinds of safeguarding mechanisms. In this context, the main challenges for managers in client organizations increasingly become finding a way to manage the potentially conflicting values and balancing procedural obligations as a public entity and the increasingly important product and performance values.In this paper we address the safeguarding mechanisms of public client organisations in public service delivery. Based on a series of 44 semi-structured interviews general managers, CPO’s, directors of new development and director of maintenance related department from 18 different public construction client organisations, we identify the meaning and importance of and experience with ensuring public values in public private collaborative practices.We found that the transference of operational responsibilities to private parties causes a value shift from a focus at procedural values to steering on performance and product values. This ongoing value shift asks for an open, transparent, and long-term client-contractor commitment in which managers in public client organizations need to adopt a facilitating and frame-setting role while building sustainable relationships based on trust.These results indicate that the alignment of the role and change in responsibilities and organisational safeguarding mechanisms should be rather flexible in order to deal with the restrictions that procedural values such as lawfulness, reliability and transparency bring along. This requires significant changes in the interpretation of the commissioning role and the transformation of the collaborative relationship in public private collaboration which are not yet fully implemented in current construction practices.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | public value management; public private partnerships; value shift; construction client; responsibilities |
| Index terms: | transparency, public private partnership, public client, public value, construction industry, collaborative practice, effectiveness, public good, commissioning, collaboration, public construction, client organization, transformation, construction client, commitment, meaning, public services, service delivery, manager, interview |
| Subjects: | practitioner, business, client relations, data collection methods, economic analysis, contractual arrangements, psychology, professional development, service delivery, performance management, management, collaborative management, completion, political science, administrative law, industry analysis, building construction, sociology |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Stakeholder Management, Roles and Professions, Procurement, Governance, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Information Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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