The public construction client of the future: Network-based collaborator in a traditional public administrative system

In the increasingly hybrid, integrated and collaborative construction industry in which traditional boundaries between government, society and market are blurring, public construction clients must redefine their roles and responsibilities. With fewer possibilities to directly influence the outcomes of public service delivery, public client organisations increasingly rely on the capabilities of other, often private or societal, organisations to achieve public objectives. In the built environment social-political responsibilities, however, remain with the public. Hence, nowadays the general challenge for public commissioners is to find a new balance between dependency and autonomy when safeguarding public values and cope with the dilemma of often conflicting traditional administrative value systems and new value systems that emerge in the collaborative context of the construction industry of the future. Reflecting on insights from  a set of 44 semi-structured interviews, 2 case studies using a combination of interviews,  observations and document analysis, and participatory design workshops with Dutch public client organisations we critically discuss our vision on the future of public commissioning in construction. Using concepts and insights from public administration and public value theory we discuss how public construction clients attempt to balance a) their procedural obligations - such as integrity, transparency and lawfulness – by upward accountability towards higher level governmental systems and politics, and  b) the need to steer on product related types of values – such sustainability, innovation and quality – by downward accountability towards internal and external. We argue that future 'good' commissioning should be about trust instead of legislation, paradox thinking (engaging with hybridity) instead of trade-off thinking (reducing complexity) and the alignment of the shifted roles and responsibilities with steering mechanisms on organisational level. And provide a preliminary public value safeguarding strategy tool for client organisations in construction.