Public Money and Mickey Mouse: Evaluating performance and accountability in the Hong Kong Disneyland joint venture public–private partnership

Abstract

Joint venture public–private partnerships (PPPs) allow partners to share in the risks and rewards of joint production. But the literature offers little theoretical guidance on assessing performance and accountability in this type of PPP. This article fills this gap by examining joint ventures as PPPs and formulates a comprehensive performance evaluation framework. Its application to the case of Hong Kong’s Disneyland Resort reveals a project that has endured several challenges related to achieving objectives, ensuring cooperation among partners, and upholding principles of democratic accountability. Outcomes from this study offer new insight into an underexplored aspect of PPP research.     

The Intellectual Structure Of Research Into PPPs

Abstract

Public–private partnerships (or PPPs) encompass a broad spectrum of public sector infrastructure and service initiatives. Recently, some scholars have undertaken literature review studies of the various definitions of the concept of PPPs and its research traditions, identifying several distinct PPP research approaches. This article aims to: (1) enhance the findings of these literature reviews; (2) identify the cited works and authors (intellectual structure) in the published research on PPPs; (3) define the subfields that constitute the intellectual structure of PPP research fields. The methodology is based on the bibliometric techniques of citation and author co-citation analysis applied to published research on PPPs included in the Social Science Citation Index.     

Rethinking the role of private capital in infrastructure PPPs: the experience of Ontario,Canada

Private capital has become a significant feature of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs) on the premise that it incentivizes diligent risk management among private partners. This paper evaluates this claim by examining the PPP programme in Ontario, Canada, where the amount of long-term private capital in PPPs has been reduced. The paper shows that decreasing the amount of private capital after construction does not undermine performance, while producing cost savings for governments. This was achieved by deploying sophisticated procurement and monitoring strategies. These findings suggest that private capital is one of several tools available to achieve positive value for money in PPPs.     

How does public participation affect perceptions of public–private partnerships? A citizens’ view on push,pull, and network approaches in PPPs

ABSTRACT

In this study, we analysed US-based public opinion data to determine the influence of particular modes of participation on citizen perceptions of public–private partnerships (PPP). Our summary finding is that information dissemination can improve community support of PPPs, but interactive engagement is more important, and likely required, for assuring citizens that projects reflect their interests – an issue vital to the long-term sustainability of PPPs. Counter to expectations, respondents indicated a preference for meetings with private partner representatives over those with their public sector counterparts; implying the value of citizen-direct relationships in holding third-party providers to account.     

Public–Private Partnerships in Health Services Delivery

Abstract

In this article, we conceptualize public–private partnerships (PPPs) from a network organizations perspective, and apply interorganizational relations (IOR) to study fifteen PPPs in a district health system in the state of Rajasthan in India. We find that the Government occupies a dominant position in the network because of the centrality of its functions, authority and control over resources and information. There is greater reliance on formal mechanisms of co-ordination. For effective network governance, it is imperative to reduce the power asymmetry, develop horizontal co-ordination, trust and social capital, and enhance public managers’ capacity for effectively managing interorganizational relationships.     

Managing partner opportunism in public–private partnerships: the dynamics of governance adaptation

ABSTRACT

Controlling partner opportunism in public–private partnership (PPP) is still controversial despite its extensive adoption. We demonstrate that partner opportunism gets controlled by the extent to which deployed governance mechanisms are aligned with the governance needs of the transaction. As unique constraint, the institutional voids limit this alignment. If not aligned with governance needs, governance adaptation cycle continues, resulting in extensive or minimally acceptable partner opportunism. The organizations tolerate opportunism as long as they derive some economic value. In the context of institutional voids, the risk of exploitation of incomplete contracts is high but if governed effectively PPPs could still deliver value.     

Public–private partnership in Public Administration discipline: a literature review

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become popular tools to deliver infrastructure and public services around the world. As an innovative public procurement approach, PPPs have drawn considerable attention from academic circles. In order to enhance our knowledge of PPPs, the authors conducted a systematic literature review of articles published in international journals of the Public Administration (PA) discipline. Four main topics in this discipline are identified by means of social network analysis, including PPP concept, risk sharing amongst PPP participants, the drivers of PPP adoption, and PPP performance. Seven propositions about the four topics are summarized. Directions for future research are also considered.     

Public–Private Partnerships in the Health Care Sector: A systematic review of the literature

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become popular worldwide as a way of improving health care service delivery. In order to enhance our knowledge of PPPs in the health care sector, we conduct a systematic review of forty-six articles published in peer-reviewed journals for the period of 1990–2011. Six lines of research in the PPP domain are identified: effectiveness, benefits, public interest, country overview, efficiency and partners. The main findings suggest that although PPPs are used to address internationally emerging public health issues, questions as to their actual effectiveness, efficiency and convenience, still remain unanswered. We propose viable recommendations and ideas for future research.     

Disorder in the Risk Order

Abstract

This paper studies the difference in global equity portfolios allocated by the criterion of minimizing the risk by using two different risk measures, the standard deviation and the conditional value at risk. An empirical analysis is performed on a comprehensive stock exchange database. The main hypothesis of the present work is that the choice of risk measure has crucial importance in portfolio optimisation, especially in those situations when the stock markets are extremely volatile and the return distributions are non-normal. The rationale behind establishing minimum-risk portfolios is to keep track of the highest possible risk reduction benefits from international diversification.     

企业并购的风险分析与管理

本文从微观的角度即从企业层面,分析企业并购过程中不同阶段的不同风险类型及成因,并对其进行管理。对那些可以事先预防的风险,提出了切实可行的防范措施;对那些无法防范的风险,则采取风险转移、减轻、接受、应急等风险控制措施进行控制。     

Political Connections and Accounting Quality under High Expropriation Risk

Abstract

We examine the impact of political connections and accounting quality among Venezuelan industrial firms, which face one of the highest levels of expropriation risk worldwide. Based on prior literature, we expect a negative relationship between expropriation risk and accounting quality as firms manage earnings to avoid ‘benign’ state intervention. We find that politically connected firms have higher accounting quality than non-connected firms, which is consistent with connected firms’ lower risk of expropriation due to connections with high-level government officials or ruling party members. The relationship between accounting quality and political connections appears to be strongly moderated by institutional features like expropriation risk.     

Procurement and innovation risk management: How a public client managed to realize a radical green innovation in a civil engineering project

Public clients’ decisions on the procurement and contracting of civil engineering projects have far-reaching effects on the development and implementation of innovations. Two decades ago, a trend towards the use of integrated contracts started to improve constructability and stimulate innovations. However, for radical innovations, the unilateral allocation of innovation risks to the main contractor is undesirable since most of the associated innovation risks are difficult to assess and manage due to the inherent uncertainties. An in-depth case study was used to investigate the development and application of an alternative public-client-led approach to realizing a radical innovation in a civil engineering project. This study shows that: (1) government championship, through a proactive participation of the public client in the initiation, development and implementation of the project and the willingness to bear innovation risks; (2) the application of innovation risk management strategies and the availability of a fall back option; (3) the establishing of favourable organizational and relational conditions, were determinative factors for the successful development and implementation of the intended radical innovation. Furthermore, seven propositions have been derived that together provide instruments through which public clients can actively promote the development and implementation of radical innovations in civil engineering projects.Subject classification codesManaging Project Risk; Managing Project Innovation; Contract Procurement and Tendering     

Risk assessment of supply-chain systems: a probabilistic inference method

ABSTRACT

The probability of occurrence, occurrence time and holding time make the estimation of the multiresource, multidimensional, transmissible and dynamic characteristics of supply-chain risk more valuable to achieving the goal of risk assessment. A dynamic Bayesian network model of supply-chain risk is constructed to describe the property of supply-chain risk; the Bayesian inference tool is then used to estimate the corresponding parameters by maximum likelihood and inference for supply-chain risks. It is concluded that supply-chain risk changes with time and would converge at a certain stable interval, occurrence time and holding time satisfy several Poisson processes.     

Litigation Risk and Corporate Voluntary Disclosure: Evidence from Two Quasi-Natural Experiments

Abstract

We examine the effect of litigation risk on corporate voluntary disclosure using two quasi-natural experiments, which have substantial and opposing impacts on the litigation risk of firms headquartered in the Ninth Circuit. We find that firms in the Ninth Circuit decrease (increase) the quantity and quality of their voluntary disclosure, relative to control firms, when their litigation risk is lowered (elevated). The pre-treatment test shows an indistinguishable trend between treatment and control firms. A battery of robustness checks indicates that our results are not driven by alternative explanations. We hypothesize and find that the impact of litigation risk is more pronounced when firms have bad news and that firms are more likely to preempt bad news through voluntary disclosures when litigation risk is elevated. Overall, results from both experiments suggest that litigation risk causally increases corporate voluntary disclosure.     

Does Adaptive Capacity Influence Service Delivery? Evidence from Swedish Emergency Management Collaborations

Abstract

The relationship between adaptive capacity and collaborative performance is a central issue within public management research but has rarely been subjected to systematic empirical testing. Using survey data on emergency preparedness collaborations in Swedish municipalities (N = 263), this article investigates the relationship between three adaptive capacity variables – diversity, interaction, and learning – and outcomes in terms of goal attainment, risk analysis, and public satisfaction with rescue services. The findings suggest a positive relationship between the number of collaboration partners and goal attainment, while learning and accessibility of collaboration venues were unassociated with service delivery variables.     

Analyzing manufacturer and the insurance-based risk mitigation policy with equipment service contracting

ABSTRACT

Manufacturing are recently investing in performance provision for customers focusing on equipment availability. However, performance-based contracts (PBC) between them suffer from the risks of downtime, opportunistic behavior, financial distress etc. We study the PBC strategy considering insurance-based risk mitigation policy. The service process with increasing failure rate is focused on where manufacturers decide to repair and replace by the equipment retirement age. The business interruption (BI) insurance is jointly purchased. Results show that insurance and PBC incentive exist partial substitutes and interactions. BI insurance not only mitigates PBC-induced risks but also provides a feasible way for improving the usage life.     

Bricolage,collaboration and mission drift in social enterprises

Abstract

Increasingly, social enterprises are relying on collaboration with partners to tackle the resource constraints that they face. In this research we focus on the strategy of bricolage to explore whether and how the different types of partner becoming involved may impact on the mission of social enterprises. Grounded in resource dependency and transaction cost theories, we explore how power asymmetry and the nature of involvement may impact on the outcomes of bricolage. Our findings demonstrate that in the more integrated relationships with high power asymmetry, more instances of mission drift might be observed compared to when social enterprises develop the more collaborative or complementary nature of partnerships with symmetrical power dependency, or when the partners’ involvements are mainly transaction-based.     

NEW LABOUR, PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AND RAIL TRANSPORT POLICY

The New Labour government has favoured the deployment of Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs) to provide investment in transport infrastructure. The results of this policy on the railways have, however, been disappointing in terms of cost and efficiency. Public transport PPPs require complex contracts underpinned by regulatory mechanisms in order to maintain performance and safety standards. Moreover, risk transfer is difficult to achieve, as essential infrastructure cannot be left to the ultimate market discipline of bankruptcy.     

Measuring Credit Risk of a Bank's Corporate Loan Portfolio Using Advanced Internal Ratings Base Approach

Abstract

The use of technical and advanced approaches in the measurement of credit risk of banks' portfolios has nowadays become a very hot issue. The most recent technical report issued by the Basel Committee in May 2003 has concentrated heavily on the measurement of credit risk using either foundation or advanced Internal Ratings Base (IRB) approaches. This empirical research study attempts to measure credit risk of a bank's corporate loan portfolio, including firms from 10 different Turkish sectors. The monthly observations of the total amount of corporate loans and the total amount of corporate loans at default across various sectors are downloaded from the web page of Central Bank of Turkey (CBT) in a period of 1999-2002. This period covers 47 monthly observations since CBT has captured sectoral corporate loans beginning of 1999. Therefore, the observed sectoral default rates are needed to be simulated to obtain a nicely shaped distribution. Monte Carlo simulation is applied for 1,000 times. Based on the simulated default rates, the expected sectoral default rates are computed. Next, a credit quality rating scale is fitted into sectoral default rates distributions. Finally, the sectoral weights in the whole loan portfolio are multiplied by the expected sectoral default rates matrix, considering cross-sectoral correlations to get the total amount of the bank's credit risk and capital requirement. It is assumed that sectoral monthly default rates are a good representative of the default risk of a sample bank's corporate loan portfolio since no publicly available data on any particular bank's corporate loan portfolio composition exists. Nevertheless, this research may be a good application for measuring the credit risk of banks' corporate loan portfolios using advanced IRB approach.     

The Determinants and Effects of Clients Following Audit Partners Who Switch Audit Firms

Abstract

We examine the determinants of clients’ decision to follow departing partners to new audit firms and the effect of this decision on the likelihood of financial restatements. Using Taiwanese audit partner turnover data from 1984 to 2010, we find that clients are more likely to follow departing partners when the partners have more clients, longer tenure, and when both lead and concurring partners leave simultaneously. By contrast, clients are more likely to stay with their incumbent audit firms when the firms are one of the Big Four or when only the concurring partners leave. The extended partner tenure due to clients following departing partners, however, does not enhance audit quality. In fact, clients that stay at the incumbent firm experience a significant decrease in the probability of financial restatements in the first year after the audit partners leave, but clients that follow do not.