Chapter 11: Dissecting the Destruction of Public Value in Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs)

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are forms of collaboration designed to create value for money (Nisar, 2007) that is assessed in most cases by using economic performance criteria (Helby Petersen, 2019; Hurst & Reeves, 2004). A new stream of literature highlights the need to adopt a public value perspective to evaluate value for money and to overcome the limit in focusing on economic performance (dos Reis & Gomes, 2023; Quélin et al., 2017; Reynaers, 2014). The topic relating to how and what are the elements that impact on public value creation or destruction in PPPs needs more investigations (dos Reis & Gomes, 2023; Esposito & Ricci, 2015; Quélin et al., 2017). Dos Reis and Gomes (2023) identified some relevant mechanisms for the creation of value in PPPs, that is, information sharing and interaction; public and private capabilities to control the contract, to measure social performance, to be more transparent, and to manage stakeholders; risk governance; and stakeholder orientation and expectation. Lack of such elements or just some could lead to unexpected results and therefore to the destruction of public value. This chapter focuses on the case of motorway PPP in Italy. This chapter analysed the capacity of motorway PPP to safeguard, create, or destruct public value in terms of accountability, transparency, responsiveness, responsibility, and quality (Reynaers, 2014). We used secondary sources (such as the contract, contract annexes, reports, etc.). The results demonstrate insufficient attention to public value and the approach used leads to the destruction of public value.