Stakeholder network dynamics and the governance of public-private partnerships

Infrastructure is a key component of any nation's capacity to promote human development. In most countries critical infrastructure is provisioned directly by government and its agencies. However, in the last two decades governments have experimented with new forms of provisioning long-term infrastructure services—rather than provisioning infrastructure assets—through variants of public-private partnerships (P3s). A typical P3 includes multiple stakeholders from different institutional domains with unique organizational perspectives. P3 stakeholders interact formally via chains of interdependent transactions, and informally through various associations. These interactions occur over extended time-horizons (30-99 years), through multiple phases of development and operations, and are accompanied by high levels of associated uncertainty and risk. P3s are thus characterized by extreme complexity, which in turn leads to extreme governance challenges. This dissertation reports on research conducted to understand how the core values and frames of stakeholders engaged in public-private arrangements are different from one another, how the composition of stakeholder networks and stakeholder interaction modes change over time through the course of a P3, and how these dynamic networks differ in settings with high vs. low institutional maturity. The first portion of this research looks at stakeholder coordination in public-private arrangements in general and P3s more specifically, drawing from five related disciplines (strategic management, business ethics, public administration, planning, and project management). Using a structured literature review of over 1,000 articles taken from top peer-reviewed journals of the five disciplines, I analyze each disciplinary perspective with respect to stakeholders. I illustrate the rise of research on stakeholders over the last 30 years and identify different organization frames, core values, and orientations towards other stakeholders in P3 networks. The second portion of this research is empirically informed by an in-depth case study of a highway transportation P3 in California over a 20-year period. This research shows that the developmental phases of P3s over their lifecycle differ in terms of dramatic changes in stakeholder network composition and changes in the mode of interaction via formal or informal institutional relationships. I employ social network analysis (SNA) to map the network of stakeholders in the P3 case and show how the stakeholder network changes over four phases. I identify how different stakeholders use formal and informal institutional relationships in their interactions, and demonstrate that the dominant type of institutional relationship employed in a P3 changes from informal to formal over the P3's lifecycle. I further show how this change in the P3's dominant type of institutional elationships corresponds to the dynamism in the stakeholder network. In the final portion of this research I compare two case studies of P3s situated within institutional environments of high vs. low levels of maturity. I demonstrate how the quantity and types of relationships differ between stakeholder networks of the P3s in a more vs. less mature institutional setting across the same phases of each project. I show the extent to which network dynamism is similar vs. different in high and low institutionally mature environments. This dissertation makes practical contributions to the governance of P3s by illuminating a significant source of stakeholder conflict, demonstrating the scopes and modes of stakeholder network dynamics over a P3s lifecycle, and offering suggestions for practitioners and future direction for academic inquiry. This research also advances a theoretical understanding of the concept of 'stakeholder' in public-private arrangements, and of institutional relationships in complex and dynamic P3s. Methodological contributions include extending SNA to dynamic networks, and combining the new archival tradition of organization research to case studies in a novel network analytic way.

Advisor: Levitt Raymond E. 
Dewulf Geert
Scott W. Richard