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Public value creation and appropriation mechanisms in public‐private partnerships: How does it play a role?

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Scholars have extensively investigated public value creation and appropriation concerning public services delivered strictly by the government and public-private arrangements, such as public-private partnerships (PPPs). However, such studies often focus on value for money and economic performance criteria. This study examines how public value can be created and appropriated in PPP settings and how public value mechanisms can influence these phenomena. Considering that the literature lacks an integrated and structured analytical framework to assess such phenomena, this conceptual article addresses four mainstream PPP topics regarding public value mechanisms (information sharing, public and private capabilities, risk governance, and stakeholder orientation), which can be associated with PPPs' public value creation (destruction) and appropriation (misappropriation). Thus, this paper highlights a need to evaluate PPPs in terms of public value creation beyond the economic performance criteria and fills the literature gap by proposing a public value creation and appropriation (PVCA) framework. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Public value creation and appropriation
mechanisms in publicprivate partnerships: How
does it play a role?
Claudio José Oliveira dos Reis
1,2
| Ricardo Corrêa Gomes
2,3
1
Faculty of Management, Universidade
Federal do Oeste da Bahia (UFOB), Barreiras,
Brazil
2
Postgraduate Programme in Management
(PPGA), Universidade de Brasília (UnB),
Brasília, Brazil
3
School of Business and Economics, Fundaç~
ao
Getulio Vargas (FGV), S~
ao Paulo, Brazil
Correspondence
Claudio José Oliveira dos Reis, Universidade
Federal do Oeste da Bahia (UFOB), Centro
das Humanidades, Rua da Prainha, n1326,
Morada Nobre, BarreirasBA, CEP:
47810-047, Brazil.
Email: claudio.reis@ufob.edu.br
Funding information
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Científico e Tecnol
ogico, Grant/Award
Number: 381589/2018-8
Abstract
Scholars have extensively investigated public value creation
and appropriation concerning public services delivered
strictly by the government and publicprivate arrange-
ments, such as publicprivate partnerships (PPPs). How-
ever, such studies often focus on value for money and
economic performance criteria. This study examines how
public value can be created and appropriated in PPP set-
tings and how public value mechanisms can influence these
phenomena. Considering that the literature lacks an inte-
grated and structured analytical framework to assess such
phenomena, this conceptual article addresses four main-
stream PPP topics regarding public value mechanisms
(information sharing, public and private capabilities, risk
governance, and stakeholder orientation), which can be
associated with PPPs' public value creation (destruction)
and appropriation (misappropriation). Thus, this article high-
lights a need to evaluate PPPs in terms of public value crea-
tion beyond the economic performance criteria and fills the
literature gap by proposing a public value creation and
appropriation framework.
1|INTRODUCTION
A growing number of governments in both developed and developing countries have implemented publicprivate
partnerships (PPPs) as a response to face fiscal constraints and increase public service quality (Grimsey &
Lewis, 2017; Hodge & Greve, 2019; Levitt et al., 2019). In line with the new public management (NPM), governments
have often argued that PPPs outperform the traditional supply of public services to justify their implementation.
Received: 4 February 2021 Revised: 31 December 2021 Accepted: 4 January 2022
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12826
Public Admin. 2023;101:693715. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 693
... Contemporary research on the risks of PPPs includes three aspects: First, a number of studies have found that it is important for both governmental and private sectors to manage risks from a project life-cycle perspective, identifying and assessing risks as early as possible, as well as allocating them to the parties that are best able to control them [13,19,20]. Second, a large number of studies have focused on the identification of categories of risk from different perspectives [21,22]. ...
... In terms of information and communication, risk itself is a social construct and dialogue process. Assessing the sources and distribution of risk and identifying the party with the greater risk-taking and coping capacities require accurate and detailed information and diverse mechanisms for the sharing and communication of information [5,19]. However, conflicts of interest, institutional logic, and differing objectives between the public and private sectors cause both sectors to conceal information, leading to information asymmetry [57,64,75,76]. ...
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... They defined public value by highlighting accountability, transparency, responsiveness, responsibility, and quality. Finally, dos Reis and Gomes (2022) modeled public value creation and public-value appropriation in PPPs by defining the relationships between four public value mechanisms: information sharing, public and private capabilities, risk governance, and stakeholder orientation. The following section describes the business models and the need for an in-depth investigation of business models in the PPP project context. ...
... The business model proposed here follows these three main components (Fig. 2). Additionally, dos Reis and Gomes (2022) mentioned the interplay of value-creation components and stated that business models should be developed by establishing Governance Assets Processes ...
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... With reference to the first, some literature explores governments' creation/destruction of public value, but there is little about PPPs. Furthermore, as highlighted by dos Reis and Gomes (2023), these studies often focus only on the quality-price ratio and economic performance criteria (Hodge and Greve 2017;Grimsey and Lewis 2005), without employing a 360-degree vision of value, which also includes social value (Quélin, Kivleniece, and Lazzarini 2017). Therefore, considering their expertise in the provision of services of general (and public) interest, it is appropriate to analyze the creation/destruction of social value in the evaluation of PPPs (Lazzarini 2020;Cabral et al. 2019). ...
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COVID‐19 radically changed how public services (activities of general interest) are pursued and administered. The search for resilient models has prompted public administration to test new regulatory approaches and to involve the third sector in the provision of primary services. This study investigates the sustainability and capacity of these models, specifically the implementation of a co‐planning and co‐design model aimed at measuring the possible creation of value and achieving common objectives. On the basis of an analysis of the development of the Turin Fast Track City project, the study employs a longitudinal method to identify not only the sustainability of the model but also new effective performance measurement tools, such as SIA analysis and integrated social accounting using financial and non‐financial elements. The study also highlights critical elements aimed at supporting future investigations.
... They found that a series of improvements regarding value delivery can be conveyed to end users at relatively low or no cost. dos Reis and Gomes (2023) addressed the lack of studies on public value creation in comparison to the economic performance of PPP projects and developed a mechanism that shows how public value can be generated in these projects. ...
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Purpose Many countries struggled to respond to the pandemic burden; in fact, most suffer from healthcare incapacity generally. Therefore, they need to find innovative systems to compensate for their deficiencies in dealing with current and future problems. One such goes down the public-private partnership (PPP) route. It is important to note, however, that PPP is not a magic wand, and some of these projects have been criticized for overruns that exceed the value created. Aiming to promote the value created in healthcare PPP projects, this study aims to identify factors and critical points related to their implementation. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage literature review was conducted to shape semi-structured interviews. Based on this, the questions to be asked in the interviews were prepared. The interviews were conducted with twelve experts. The transcripts of the twelve semi-structured interviews were analyzed using manual thematic analysis to reveal the most critical value-creation factors (VCFs). The VFCs were validated by comparing them with the studies in the literature and by having focus group discussions (FGDs) with the experts. Finally, in an FGD, the experts discussed how these factors affect value creation in healthcare PPP projects. Findings The findings show that VFCs can be categorized into four dimensions: assets, partnership synergy, cooperation environment and processes. Based on the frequency of codes during the thematic analysis, the most frequently addressed VFCs in each category were identified. These were complementary skills and resources, attitude, early establishment of the operational body and effective design development, respectively. Practical implications This research contributes to both society and practice by unveiling VCFs and effective ways to achieve them in healthcare PPP projects. Thus, practitioners can generate more value and bring value to the forefront of healthcare PPPs, which can then enhance the value gained by society. Originality/value Studies to date have offered little about VCFs and how to realize value in PPP projects by considering the factors involved in them. Moreover, value creation in PPP healthcare projects has largely remained unexplored, despite PPPs being adopted and investigated quite commonly.
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