Speaker
Description
Urban development in the Netherlands increasingly addresses a wide range of societal challenges, including housing shortage, sustainable energy transition, social inequalities, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. As a result, development processes have become increasingly complex. This complexity has led to a renewed interest in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as governance strategies in Dutch urban development to leverage the strengths of both public and private sectors in pursuing shared objectives and creating public value (BPD, 2023; Hümmels, 2017; Kort and Klijn, 2011; Ten Have et al., 2017). A trend that aligns with the New Public Governance discourse, which advocates for more networked forms of collaboration between public and private actors to address today’s wicked problems, emphasizing the importance of cooperation, co-production and shared responsibility rather than hierarchical control or purely contractual relationships (Ansell and Torfing, 2020; Krogh and Triantafillou, 2024).
However, concerns persist about potential tensions between public and private values within partnerships. Public-Private Joint Ventures (PPJVs), in particular, face criticism for governance designs that distance local politics from operational decision-making, benefiting progress and efficiency on the one hand, but potentially undermining values such as democratic legitimacy, transparency, and accountability on the other (European Commission, 2004; Reynaers, 2014). Another critique is that the differing organizational cultures and objectives of public and private actors can lead to conflicts over priorities and decision-making processes, potentially undermining the effectiveness of the partnership and putting public goals or values at stake (Van der Wal, 2008). However, studies identifying and providing overview of the key value tensions in urban development partnerships are lacking. Furthermore, the dichotomous market versus state perspective and respective value differences are primarily theoretically grounded, and – certainly in the urban development context – has been demonstrated to a limited extent empirically.
Great scholarly attention has been given to critical success factors for the performance of PPPs across sectors, often categorized into two main groups: those based on contractual governance (e.g. clear contracts defining allocation of risks and responsibilities, application of sanctions, performance metrics) and those rooted in relational governance (e.g. trust, communication, openness) (Warsen et al., 2019; Koppenjan et al., 2022). Still, there remains a significant gap in understanding the contractual and relational governance conditions that drive the performance of networked PPPs that go beyond contractual relationships, which are particularly evident in urban development. Moreover, there is limited empirical evidence of how contractual and relational governance elements relate to value tensions.
The aim of this contribution is twofold. Firstly, by identifying the key value tensions specifically within PPJVs through a literature review and semi-structured interviews with professionals experts. Secondly, it aims to explore how these value tensions become evident and relate to contractual and relational governance conditions in Dutch urban development.
The findings reveal that PPJVs can mediate value tensions while maintaining effectiveness by finding the right balance between contractual governance and relational governance. Structured agreements play a role in aligning financial objectives with societal goals through balanced risk-sharing and contractually defined goals, while keeping contracts as light as possible preserves efficiency, effectiveness and the ability to navigate based on relational norms. Contractual control mechanisms such as an independent director, external audits and internal checks can safeguard public values like transparency and accountability, reduce the likelihood of opportunistic behaviour and mitigate value tensions. Contractual and relational governance conditions relate to how value tensions are evident in urban development, and can simultaneously provide opportunities and actionable perspectives to address them. By elucidating this interplay, the paper informs the design of effective governance structures for contemporary urban development challenges that support public value creation.
References
Because of word limit I had to put the references in the comment section
| Keywords | urban development, Public-Private Partnerships, value tensions, Public-Private Joint Venture, governance |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
