AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) The overall aim of this thesis was to examine the perceptions of public and private sector stakeholders in social infrastructure Public-Private Partnership (PPP) schemes in order to develop a framework of risk factors. The theoretical framework developed from reviewing relevant literature is tested against organisational data from Australian companies who bid for PPPs and further refined via case study data from current Australian PPP projects. The outcomes of the comparison are discussed and project specific risk factor frameworks are established. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are long-term contractual arrangements between the public and private sectors, whereby resources and risk are shared for the purpose of developing public infrastructure. The last three decades have seen the evolution of PPPs as an alternative procurement method to traditional methods of delivering public infrastructure. Constant and competing demands for public sector investment for new infrastructure has prompted Australian governments to increasingly turn to the private sector to form partnerships in the construction, ownership and operation of infrastructure assets. This has become a major challenge for all stakeholders, as government alone cannot meet provision, however, the emergence of PPPs provides an alternate means for developing infrastructure at a rate that maintains and allows growth without directly impacting upon the government’s budgetary constraints. The concepts of PPPs are without doubt extremely complex arrangements, which bring to the construction sector risks not experienced previously. The majority of key historical work into risk factors of public-private sector joint ventures has been within the field of BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) and BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) projects. In Australia, BOT and BOOT are early forerunners of procurement methods that are now commonly defined as PPPs. The research addresses a knowledge gap in the analysis of the various phases of PPP schemes, particularly for the provision of ‘social’ infrastructure projects. Although few PPP schemes have reached the transfer stage of the cycle, due the common 20-30 year operational period, there are sufficient projects in their operational phase to facilitate such analysis. There is considerable growth potential for PPPs given that the New South Wales Government has developed policies to expand the application of PPPs to include social infrastructure. A key argument for Governments to procure projects using PPPs is that the process would deliver better overall value for all the stakeholders, including the broader community. Social infrastructure projects are characterised as generally being smaller in scale than economic infrastructure projects and, by their very nature, also tend to be complex, particularly in terms of ongoing involvement with the community. Australian social infrastructure PPPs must allow for the private sector to utilise its expertise and gain a broader scope of work and an…