Managing public private partnerships (PPPs) through collaborative governance structure: a tale of two infrastructure projects in Victoria, Australia

In recent decades, the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure development has received significant scholarly attention. Much of this attention originates from recognition of the challenges inherent in this move towards greater collaboration between the public and the private sector in building large infrastructure projects as PPPs, especially in Australia. The adoption of this management model has come with much praise as well as some criticism, particularly concerning the ways in which the model is fundamentally different from traditional contractual arrangements. The purpose of this study is to examine the management practices of two Victorian PPP infrastructure projects: EastLink and the Southern Cross Station Redevelopment. The aim is to examine the operational aspects of these projects to show how management approaches can be instrumental in designing and implementing effective procedures for implementing large infrastructure projects. This study investigates how a collaborative governance structure provides better quality services through sharing of knowledge and information, managing risks, and involving stakeholders with an innovative engagement regime to complete the project on time and on budget. There has been little investigation into how management practices make a difference in large infrastructure projects to reduce costs and time. Understandably, the large number of stakeholders, often with conflicting interests, makes large infrastructure projects complicated to coordinate and manage. However, this study reveals that those complexities and challenges can be addressed through innovative management practices. Case study method is used for this study. Data were gathered through face-to-face interviews, using semi-structured questions, with 40 important participants, including senior policy makers from the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance, project managers from the public and the private sector, local council officials and community groups. The questions were devised to elicit the key factors of collaborative governance and to identify a wide range of opinions about the management practices used in the two projects. Our findings reveal that PPPs require a better configured management approach, where factors such as mutual trust, risks and knowledge sharing between participating partners and, more importantly, stakeholders are incorporated into a collaborative governance structure. This study argues that the nexus between the state and market has significantly changed over recent decades and tilted from longterm contractual arrangements towards collaboration through PPPs, which provide operational flexibility for implementing infrastructure projects. We argue that the transparency of the process, continuous improvement of process-related actions, stakeholders' engagement and innovation in distribution of tasks and responsibilities in a segmented but well-synchronised manner strengthen partnership arrangements and help project teams identify and manage risks. We also conclude from these two cases that the success or failure of a PPP model depends on the management practices that the partner organisations use through a collaborative governance structure.