P12 Public Value in Public-Private Partnerships: strategic trends and development in governments

Corresponing chair

Prof. Paolo Esposito – Associate Professor at Department of Law, Economics, Management and Quantitaive Methods (DEMM), University of Sannio, Italy, pesposito@unisannio.it

Review group chair

Dr. Vincenzo Riso, Assistant Professor at Department of Management, University of Verona, Italy

Co-chair: Prof. Enrico Bracci – Full Professor at Department of Economics and Management, University of Ferrara, Italy

Co-chair: Prof. Artur Kolowsky Professor and Vice-Rector for Science and International Cooperation at WSB Merito University in Gdanskat, Poland

Member of review group: Dr. Massimiliano Tufo, Research Assistant at Department of Law, Economics, Management and Quantitaive Methods (DEMM), University of Sannio, Italy

Description

This panel is focused on Public-private partnerships (PPPs) that are widely debated in the last years (Esposito and Dicorato, 2020; Tallaki and Bracci, 2021; Song et al., 2022).

Various scholars, practitioners and policy-makers address their attention on PPPs under different perspectives (e.g., problem solving, procurement, project financing etc). Observing in a wider view PPPs we consider Public Value Theory as the best framework in the literature to address the many dimensions of performance and strategy. Indeed, Public Management scholars introduced the concept of “public value” (Moore, 1995), emphasising the importance of the role of managers in achieving the goals of effectiveness and efficiency in the implementation of public policies (O'Flynn, 2007).

On the other hand, “value destruction” depends on the individual that is called upon to perform any such activities in relation to a public service (Esposito and Ricci, 2014; Esposito and Ricci, 2015; Kelly and Swindell, 2002) and his target is different from the one originally set down.

For this reason, preserving the public administration's ability to generate public value is essential. Indeed, according to Bryson et al. (2014), public value is “the social and community worth [that] incorporates the results made feasible by the public property”.

Embracing a broad definition of “public value” we welcome, but are not limited to, papers covering the following topics:

• Dynamics and processes of creation and destruction of public value;
• Public value and trust between organizations, internal and external, to the PPP;
• Public value and corruption;
• Measurement of performance, impacts and public value;
• Sustainable development, public value and collaboration between public and private;
• Risk management in PPP for value creation;
• The role of accounting for public value creation: accounting for accountability.

We welcome papers that explore these issues and identify the benefits and problems, opportunities and threats, of PPPs. Papers may be theoretical, conceptual or empirical, and may focus on mapping the research agenda or identifying the policy and practice implications for governments and public servants.

Keywords: public-private partnership; public value; public development

References

• Bryson, J. M., Crosby, B. C., & Bloomberg, L. (2014). Public value governance: Moving beyond traditional public administration and the new public management. Public administration review, 74(4), 445-456.
• Esposito, P., & Dicorato, S. L. (2020). Sustainable development, governance and performance measurement in public private partnerships (PPPs): A methodological proposal. Sustainability, 12(14), 5696.
• Esposito, P., & Ricci, P. (2015). How to turn public (dis) value into new public value? Evidence from Italy. Public Money & Management, 35(3), 227-231.
• Esposito, P., & Ricci, P. (2014). Public (dis) Value: A case study. In Public value management, measurement and reporting (pp. 291-300). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
• Moore, M. H. (1995). Creating public value: Strategic management in government. Harvard university press.
• Kelly, J. M., & Swindell, D. (2002). A multiple–indicator approach to municipal service evaluation: Correlating performance measurement and citizen satisfaction across jurisdictions. Public administration review, 62(5), 610-621.
• O'Flynn, Janine. "From new public management to public value: Paradigmatic change and managerial implications." Australian journal of public administration 66, no. 3 (2007): 353-366.
• Osborne, S. P., & Murray, V. (2000). Understanding the process of public-private partnerships. In Public-Private Partnerships (pp. 88-101). Routledge.
• Song, J., Liu, H., Sun, Y., & Song, L. (2022). Contextual recipes for adopting private control and trust in public–private partnership governance. Public Administration.
• Tallaki, M., & Bracci, E. (2021). Risk allocation, transfer and management in public–private partnership and private finance initiatives: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 34(7), 709-731.