Signaling Public Private Partnership Activities: Reporting Behavior Within Annual Reports

This empirical study examines whether, and if so, to what extent, firms report on Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects to signal PPP engagement even beyond legal obligations. The annual reports of the sample’s firms listed on the VSE in 2005 have been investigated in a qualitative and quantitative way to reveal information policy. Annual reports confirming PPP activities are examined qualitatively by an in-depth content analysis to answer the question in which way information about the revealed PPP projects is published. Further, predetermined keywords that at least indicate a PPP participation are statistically evaluated. The results outline that annual reports only give little and predominantly unspecific information on PPP which emphasizes the absence of corresponding reporting obligations and of a standardized PPP definition.