Public private partnership (PPP) outcomes in e-government – a social capital explanation

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-09-2015-0160
• Date: 10 October 2016
• Pages: 638-658
• Published date: 10 October 2016
• Author: Madhuchhanda Das Aundhe,Ramesh Narasimhan
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management

Public private partnership (PPP)

outcomes in e-government –a

social capital explanation

Madhuchhanda Das Aundhe

Independent Researcher, Bangalore, India, and

Ramesh Narasimhan

SVKM’s NMIMS University, Bangalore, India

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why the intangible critical success factors

(CSFs) determine the outcomes of public-private partnerships (PPP) projects in e-governance.

Design/methodology/approach –Drawing from the literature, PPP was conceptualized as an

organization which facilitates the creation of social capital. It is argued that the intangible

CSFs correspond to the key dimensions of the social capital that drives the development of

intellectual capital in the course of addressing the challenges faced during the execution of an

e-governance project. These efforts determine the accomplishment of the desired project objectives.

The emergent framework was applied to an e-governance PPP project to anecdotally exemplify

how the deficiency of organizational characteristics impedes the formation of social capital,

resulting in project failure.

Findings –A theoretical framework was developed to illuminate the mechanisms and the attendant

propositions that explain how and why the intangible factors influence the PPP outcomes.

Research limitations/implications –This study fills a critical gap in the literature on PPP projects

in general, and on e-governance projects in particular. It also extends the application of the social

capital framework from an intra-organizational to an inter-organizational context.

Practical implications –The results of this study foster a better understanding of the drivers of

success in managing a PPP model in e-governance initiatives.

Social implications –This research work would help in improving the formulation and management

of PPPs in the emerging economies, which could potentially enhance the societal outcomes.

Originality/value –The explanatory framework of this research serves as a useful perspective to

address policy and program implementation issues of PPP initiatives in e-governance.

Keywords Social capital, Critical success factors, E-governance, Public-private partnerships

Paper type Conceptual paper

1. Introduction

This paper addresses the question of how and why public-private partnerships (PPP)

projects succeed or fail, especially in the context of complex e-government initiatives.

The challenges faced by a PPP project during its implementation and the issues of

relationship and co-operation between the public and private partners need to be

studied in detail.

The internet boom led to the emergence of e-government initiatives in the late 1990s.

We define e-government as the capacity to transform public administration by using

information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance the ease of access of

government information and services to citizens, non-government organizations, and

other government entities. The complexity of e-government projects being very high,

their reported failure rates are also in the range of 60-80 percent (Heeks, 2006; Stanforth,

2010), resulting in significant loss of financial, human, and political resources, as well as

loss of potential benefits of e-government to the stakeholders.

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 29 No. 7, 2016

pp. 638-658

©Emerald Group Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-09-2015-0160

Received 3 September 2015

Revised 1 March 2016

18 May 2016

Accepted 22 May 2016

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3558.htm

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IJPSM

29,7

The PPP arrangement has been offered as a success strategy for e-government

projects (Gil-García and Pardo, 2005; Chen and Perry, 2003). It is an arrangement

between a public entity (government) and private entity (non-government) whereby,

services traditionally delivered by the public entity are provided largely by the private

entity under a set of terms and conditions well defined at the outset. PPP projects have

become popular in a number of countries since they help governments in reducing their

spending and borrowing, and enable them to leverage the efficiency of the private

enterprise. Thus, PPP combines the accountability of the public sector with the

efficiency of the private entities and help in sharing risks (Hodge and Greve, 2007).

In recent times, several e-government projects are being implemented through PPP

arrangements (Ruuska and Teigland, 2009; Sharma, 2007). However, partnerships, in

general (whether in the public or private sectors), have often not delivered the expecte d

outcomes, largely due to relationship issues between the partners (Diamond, 2006;

Friend, 2006; Laffin and Liddle, 2006; Wettenhall, 2007; Lacity et al., 2009). Hence, there

is an urgent need for a closer understanding of relationship issues in e-government

partnership arrangements.

Relationship issues in partnerships, both in e-government projects and others, are

usually due to reasons like lack of shared vision, weak consensual decision-making

capabilities, lack of respect and trust between partners, etc. It is widely reported that

such intangible factors of the “soft”kind (i.e. trust, communication, relationships, and

shared vision) have been observed to have greater influence on partnership outcomes

than the “hard”success factors, that is financial and technological aspects (Moon et al.,

2007; CITU, 2000; Jacobson and Choi, 2008; Patching and Chatham, 2000; Strassmann,

1997; Trafford and Proctor, 2006). The influence of such soft factors on the outcomes of

PPP projects in e-government could be much more due to the complexity of the

adoption of ICT innovations within a government system (Heeks, 2005). While many

researchers have cited the soft factors, a deeper analysis is required to understand how

the soft factors determine outcomes. Therefore, this study specifically addresses the

issues of how and why the soft success factors influence PPP project outcomes.

In order to develop the explanation, we have chosen the social capital framework

(Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998), as this provides the knowledge-oriented approach that

the PPP model requires –transferring, exchanging, and combining knowledge with

partners and learning from them, in order to innovatively solve the problems and

address the challenges encountered in implementing complex e-government projects

(Foster and Heeks, 2013). The social capital perspective would not only help in

understanding the relationship between the partners, and thus manage the outcome of

the project, but could also inform e-government policies and help shape the practices of

public sector managers.

The paper is divided into seven sections: Section 2 reviews the literature on

e-government in general, and PPP in particular. Section 3 describes the methodology of

the study, while Section 4 develops the explanatory framework. An illustrative case

study is described in Section 5. Section 6 analyses, exemplifies, and discusses the case

based on literature review and the developed explanatory framework. The conclusions,

implications, limitations, and directions for future research are presented in Section 7.

2. Literature review

There are several definitions of e-government, but the general consensus among

authors is that electronic government entails much more than the evolutionary process

of systems and technologies; it includes organizational, institutional, and

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PPP outcomes

in e-government