Stakeholder dynamics: Rethinking roles and responsibilities in user-pay transport PPP projects

Public-private partnership (PPP) stakeholders have gained traction for their potential to create long-term value. Extant literature emphasizes the importance of suitable stakeholder management strategies, yet the analysis of such strategies has traditionally been conducted from the viewpoint of the responsible parties (i.e., the PPP consortium and the contracting agency) because these are the stakeholders in charge of developing the project and delivering its much-expected benefits. While extant literature often focuses on the interests of either responsible stakeholders or impacted stakeholders, this study addresses the critical but underexplored dynamics involving the wide arrangement of responsible, impacted, and interested stakeholders encompassing diverse groups, such as local communities, interest groups, advisors, local governments, users, and debt providers, who interact and shape project outcomes. Drawing lessons from a multiple-case study involving two mature toll road markets composed of 49 projects, this research reveals the main stakeholders' issues at three different levels: institutional, organizational, and project. To address these challenges, a relational governance model is proposed where each identified stakeholder should play a specific role in key decisions made in specific project phases. This study provides insights into stakeholder dynamics in user-pay transport PPPs, offering solutions for enhanced engagement and project outcomes. This research offers relevant theoretical contributions to rethinking the roles of impacted and interested stakeholders in PPPs, and these insights have practical implications for improving stakeholder engagement, risk management, and project outcomes in user-pay transportation PPPs.