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The Performance of Public–Private Partnerships: An Evaluation of 15 Years DBFM in Dutch Infrastructure Governance

2022; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 45; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/15309576.2022.2062399

1557-9271

Joop Koppenjan, Erik‐Hans Klijn, Stefan Verweij, Mike Duijn, Ingmar van Meerkerk, Samantha Metselaar, Rianne Warsen,

Construction Project Management and Performance

This article presents an ex-post evaluation of the performance of Dutch Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) infrastructure projects compared to Design and Construct (D&C) contracts, which uses quantitative (financial project data and survey) and qualitative (interviews) data. Drawing on institutional theory, notably the economic institutionalism inspired-contractual perspective and the sociological institutionalism-oriented collaborative perspective, the evaluation focuses on four performance indicators—cost, time, quality, and innovation—and five public–private partnership (PPP) performance drivers—private financing, performance-dependent payments, bundling (i.e., the integrated nature of contracts), risk transfer, and collaboration. It was found that the DBFM projects performed similarly to, or better than, the D&C contracts. The impact of bundling on innovation was positive, while its impact on quality was inconclusive. The collaboration proved to be a strong driver for performance and innovation but was not stronger in DBFM projects compared to D&C projects. Over time, collaboration and performance improved suggesting that besides project characteristics, PPP performance is influenced by the way actors deal with contracts and by the gradual process by which they learn to do so. Theoretically, this means that historical institutionalism is part of the explanation of PPP performance.