Public-private partnerships and questions in public procurement.

摘要

This study explores the connections of public procurement official perceptions of public-private partnerships and their contracting decisions for public infrastructure projects. Detailed discussion of previous scholarship and its focus on policymaking and project evaluation of public-private partnerships leaves a gap in the public policy process---implementation. Procurement officials are presented in the role of policy implementers rather than agents in a principal-agent approach. This attempts to address a shortcoming of the description that these officials do nothing more than purchase. Arguments are put forth that these officials are given additional levels of discretion when faced with contracting decisions. Specifically, procurement officials observe that public-private partnerships provide sets of project consequences.;A survey instrument is designed to explore the differences in perceptions that procurement officials have with respect to public-private partnerships and traditional contracting out. Survey failures result in findings only being able to attempt a more general view of public-private partnerships. Results allow perceptions to be placed in a decision-making model based on a project phase approach that develops on the assumption that tasks contracted to private vendors produce project consequences. Furthermore, analysis of significant consequence perceptions indicate that those perceptions do not provide a rationale for a procurement official's decision-making on whether to contract using a public-private partnership for public infrastructure projects. Independent sample t-tests, controlled correlations, multiple ANOVA and linear regression analyses show that perceptions of consequences, the perceptions of differences of those consequences across project phases, relationships of consequences to perceptions of efficiency and effectiveness proxies and a bounded rationality-based model of decision-making for procurement officials are all inconclusive. Discussion focuses on the development of consequences and phases as defining and clarifying public-private partnerships. Further discussions are presented for procurement officials with respect to their decision-making and possible role as policy implementers. Conclusions fail to uncover any inferential results. The research finds its primary contribution in the conceptual discourse of public procurement official roles and public-private partnership definitions.