Purpose
The privatization of infrastructure promotes efficiency and service standards. While cross-border private participation infrastructure (PPI) projects hosted in emerging markets have become more prevalent in recent years, there have also been more failures. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how governance distance affects the survival of cross-border PPI projects.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide theoretical justification and empirical evidence to verify our views. The authors test the hypotheses on a sample of 4,678 cross-border PPI project investments made in emerging market countries between 1990 and 2016. Estimation techniques consist of a binary logistic regression model and a rare events logistic model.
Findings
The findings suggest that increased governance distance can lead to project failure. The study results show that governance distance is negatively correlated with the probability of project survival. Greenfield investment intensifies the negative effect of governance distance while competitive contracts mitigate the negative effect of governance distance.
Practical implications
The results reveal that transnational investment in infrastructure projects is susceptible to institutional differences between home and host countries. Therefore, both private enterprises and host government should pay attention to the impact of inter-country differences on negotiations and project operation. Competitive contracts mitigate this negative effect, but entering in the form of greenfield investment amplifies the negative effect of distance.
Originality/value
Transnational industrial engineering projects are easily affected by the differences in governance levels between the two countries. This study introduces governance distance into the field of infrastructure projects, focusing on the impact of differences between home and host countries on transnational projects. The findings on infrastructure projects that are closely related to host government contribute to the literature by broadening the research of institution and distance.
