Recognizing and Resolving Social Dilemmas in Supply Chain Public–Private Partnerships

he public–private partnership (PPP) is a popular strategy for creating global sustainable value. However, many PPPs struggle to realizetheir value-added potential. Why do some public–private partnerships succeed while others fail, and how may those struggling succeed?Combining supply-chain integration and social dilemma perspectives into the conversation of PPPs, we examine the dynamics and psychologyof cooperation necessary for PPP success. Addressing the ﬁrst part of our research question, we recognize three social dilemmas that can mani-fest while managing PPP supply chains: a give-some dilemma, a take-some dilemma, and a give-or-take-some dilemma. To address the secondpart of our research question, we present a taxonomy of strategies resolving these PPP social dilemmas through the enhancement of trust, self-efﬁcacy, and social responsibility. We discuss implications for PPPs, supply-chain, and social dilemma literatures.Keywords: cooperation; give-some dilemma; take-some dilemma; public–private partnership; social dilemma; supply-chain integrationINTRODUCTIONThe public–private partnership (PPP) is a popular strategy forachieving collective action in cities, states, and nations (Skelcher2005). Furthermore, PPPs are capturing interest of supply-chainmanagement and public-policy scholars (Hodge and Greve 2007;Yescombe 2007; Fawcett et al. 2011). One reason for a PPP’sappeal involves enhancing social welfare (Linder 1999) through“global sustainable value creation” (Mahoney et al. 2009, 1034)that neither public nor private entities could achieve on theirown. The second appealing quality is that the risks and rewardsof PPPs are shared among partners (Ruben et al. 2007; Kovacsand Tatham 2009).Despite their attractiveness, many PPPs struggle to create pro-jected value (Hodge 2004). Because PPPs are to enhance socialwelfare, their failure often brings heavy costs—not only onexchange partners (e.g., damaged relationship) but—on third-party stakeholders (e.g., tax payers and community members)who rely on the PPP (Muraskin 1998). The struggle of PPPsleads some to comment that PPPs “seem to have the potential toaddress society’s most complex problems [but] often appear toproduce little of value” (Koschmann et al. 2012, 332). Weaddress the two-part research question “Why do some public-pri-vate partnerships succeed while others fail, and how may thosestruggling succeed?”The psychology and dynamics of cooperation provide a foun-dation to answer our research question. Weihe (2010) observesthat, while considerable research on PPP formation exists, littleresearch addresses how cooperation is generated and sustainedafter PPPs are formed. Fawcett et al. (2011) suggest that, to cre-ate value, PPPs must not only effectively integrate supply-chainresources to create value but cooperatively share risks andrewards.We draw from two literatures to understand cooperation inPPPs: supply-chain integration and social dilemmas. We submitthat sustaining cooperation in integrated PPP supply chainscreates three social dilemmas: the give-some dilemma, the take-some dilemma, and the give-or-take-some dilemma (Dawes1980; McCarter et al. 2011a). We offer a taxonomy of strategiesfor navigating these social dilemmas through enhancing trust,self-efﬁcacy, and social responsibility among supply-chain part-ners.Our article makes three main contributions. First, our researchanswers Weihe’s (2010) call for examining the microfoundationsto sustained cooperation in PPPs. Second, the PPP context neces-sitates the introduction of take-some and give-or-take-somedilemmas—complementing well-known give-some dilemmas—into the supply-chain literature. Introducing these two socialdilemmas opens discussion on collective-action problems thatoccur after supply-chain partners successfully pool resources.Third, our taxonomy uses governance value analysis (Ghosh andJohn 1999) to provide speciﬁc solutions to solve social dilemmasfor PPP supply chains.The remainder of this paper is divided into four sections. Sec-tion “PPPs and supply chain integration” reviews the supply-chain integration literature germane to PPPs. Section “Recogniz-ing PPP social dilemmas” recognizes that integration of PPP sup-ply chains is a social dilemma, and discusses three socialdilemmas in PPPs. Section “Resolving PPP social dilemmas”deduces a taxonomy of solutions resolving PPP social dilemmas.Section “Discussion and conclusion” concludes with implicationsof our taxonomy for PPP, supply-chain integration, and socialdilemma literatures.PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND SUPPLYCHAIN INTEGRATIONIn our literature review, we followed the steps outlined by Cre-swell (2008, 29–30). We identiﬁed initial keywords public-privatepartnership and cross-sector partnership and searched EBSCOand Google Scholar databases. We began with inﬂuential papersCorresponding author:Matthew W. McCarter, College of Business, University of Texas atSan Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA;E-mail: matthew.mccarter@utsa.eduJournal of Business Logistics, 2013, 34(4): 360–372© Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals