Assessing public-private partnership (PPP) governance, institutionalization, and market maturity in the United States and abroad

Infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) represent long term contractual arrangements between public agencies and private partners that increase private participation and risk sharing in various stages of the project lifecycle, including facility design, construction, financing, operations, and maintenance. Globally, PPPs have increased in popularity as an alternative procurement model for infrastructure projects, but their efficacy and performance remain subject to extensive debate. In recent years, scholars have begun to stress the importance of institutional settings in PPP outcomes as well as identify critical success factors (CSFs) that support the emergence and sustenance of PPP programs. This research builds on the nascent work of these scholars by exploring the political, economic, social, and legal factors affecting PPP governance, institutionalization, and market development, both in the United States and abroad. The first portion of this research begins by examining infrastructure PPPs within the increasingly fragmented and uncertain public management paradigm known as New Public Governance (NPG). Drawing on literature across public administration, organizational theory, public policy, and project management, this work (re)defines PPPs within the NPG paradigm and develops a PPP institutional maturity model based on three institutional capabilities-legitimacy, trust, and capacity. The U.S. PPP market is then used as a case example to explore how the maturity of PPPs in an institutional setting depends on legitimacy, trust, and capacity in the PPP model. The second portion of this research then explores PPP institutionalization, a process which is overlooked in much of the extant literature. To address this gap, a combination of Johnson et al. 's (2006) four phases of institutionalization—innovation, local validation, diffusion, and general validation—and Mrak's (2014) three models of PPP institutionalization—centralized, decentralized, and mixed—are utilized to examine the current state of the U.S. PPP market. Using data on 368 U.S. PPP projects from Inframation's global transactions database, the case analysis indicates America's PPP institutionalization process is strongly decentralized and currently in a state of diffusion. The analysis also suggests general validation of PPPs in the U.S. will likely be predicated on shifting to a mixed PPP institutionalization model. Finally, the last portion of this research takes an international perspective and examines whether different constellations of institutional factors create unique causal "paths" to mature PPP market performance. Using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine the institutional settings of 48 different PPP markets across Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and the Asia-Pacific region (APAC), this research indicates that certain institutional conditions are critical for PPP market maturity when combined with one or more other causes. Overall, this research makes a variety of theoretical and practical contributions to PPP governance. First and foremost, this work offers a succinct theoretical framework for assessing PPP institutional maturity. It also represents the first systematic examination of the PPP institutionalization process. Moreover, this research operationalizes its theory and offers academics, policymakers, and industry practitioners a critical lens for assessing PPP market maturity across localized, institutional settings. Moving forward, this research will be valuable for highlighting PPP market signals and isolating recommendations for institutional reform.