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International Journal of Project Management 35 (2017) 221 – 223
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Editorial
Public policy and projects: making connections and starting
conversations — Joe Sanderson and Graham Winch

Project management is very deeply embedded in the public are inadequate to provide returns on investment, while the former
sector. If we follow Morris' (1994) standard account, the project condition means that it is politically acceptable in all jurisdictions
management toolkit was developed within the public sector for for economic infrastructure to be provided by the public sector
cold war defence acquisition projects and challenges to that financed through general levies or taxation. The paradigm
perspective (e.g. Lenfle and Loch, 2010) also draw on evidence example of a public good is the lighthouse.
from a public sector project. However, there has been remarkably Coase (1974) developed this argument by pointing out that
little attention in the field of project organising research to the public goods do not necessarily mean public provision, citing the
public policy aspects. This special issue aims to address this gap example of the UK where the provision of lighthouses has been,
by publishing papers on the role of the public sector in the and still is, a more mixed affair under a Crown charter since 1514.
promotion and delivery of major programmes. Although the call France, on the other hand, chose direct public provision by the
for this special issue on public policy and projects was not in any central state (Bertrand, 2005). Three of the papers in this special
way restricted to economic infrastructure programmes, in the issue (Aerts, Dooms and Haezendonck; Santandrea, Sironi,
outturn nearly all the submitted papers, and all of the accepted Grassi and Georgino; Teo and Bridge) directly address the
papers, are focused on this sector.1 So, this introduction will also modern incarnation of this private provision of public goods
focus on economic infrastructure. This leaves it open for others to through the widely diffused public policy initiative on public
promote special issues on important topics such as government private partnerships (PPPs).
transformation programmes, social infrastructure, and the Once the public sector has determined that a particular
acquisition of defence materiel from a policy perspective. infrastructure investment is desirable it needs both to acquire the
The social and economic role of infrastructure in modern human and material resources required to deliver it and also to
societies is well understood (Stevens et al., 2006), yet recent convince stakeholders whose interests are negatively affected by
research has identified the so-called “infrastructure gap” (World that investment to accept it. An initial challenge is to avoid
Economic Forum, 2012). This is the gap between current corruption in the acquisition of the required resources, because
investment in economic infrastructure and the investment the large sums of public money being invested are honey pots for
required to support properly economic growth, a gap which is those wanting to make a quick buck. For obvious reasons,
widened by the severe dilapidation of many existing economic empirical research in this area is very challenging, so we are
infrastructure assets (Kanter, 2015; Kessides, 2004). Economic particularly pleased to be able to publish Locatelli, Mariani,
infrastructure is also characterised by a “market failure” in which Sainati and Greco on this under-researched topic. Choosing how
private sector enterprise is incapable of meeting the demand for to acquire those resources through the most appropriate
infrastructure despite its economic value because they are procurement routes is a question explored in this special issue
“collective consumption” (Samuelson, 1954), or public, goods. by Park and Kwak. Their research suggests that the predom-
Here each person can consume without reducing the ability of inance of design-bid-build procurement in many infrastructure
others to consume (up to congestion limits) and it is infeasible to projects runs counter to arguments in the contracts literature.
exclude potential consumers of a public good for practical or Convincing stakeholders of the merits of the infrastructure
political reasons. The latter condition means that income streams investment remains challenging, particularly where global
winners in the wider economy face local losers whose property
and amenity are adversely affected by the investment. Current
1
approaches conceptualise stakeholders as proactive hubs engag-
A partial exception to this generalisation is Santandrea, Sironi, Grassi and
Georgino which analyses the UK's HM Treasury data base of all PFI projects,
ing with reactive satellites (Winch, forthcoming 2017), and we
many of which were social infrastructure and, in the early phases, information need new ways of conceptualising stakeholder networks along
systems projects. the lines suggested by Revellino and Mouritsen.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.12.001
0263-7863/00/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. APM and IPMA. All rights reserved.
222 Editorial

In spite of the importance of these issues, there has been negative consequences for project efficiency, legitimacy and
comparatively little research into the owner side of projects and accountability. They look at knowledge transfers in two
programmes across those sectors where the government is an Belgian rail infrastructure projects, and find that the transfer
investor and owner responsible for the realisation of benefits of knowledge from the temporary projects to the permanent
through life. The principal exceptions to this generalisation are state-owned enterprise (the owner) was limited to an individual
reviewed in Brunet and Aubry (2016). Their review suggests that and tacit level. Broader organisational learning, generating
the effectiveness of major projects intended to deliver public explicit knowledge that might be deployed by the owner on
policy initiatives, typically through some form of built infra- future large-scale infrastructure projects, remains underdevel-
structure, should not be judged simply in terms of rational oped in these cases. Their key explanation is that these
economic efficiency and the value for money achieved – privately-financed PPP projects were politically imposed on
performance narrowly defined. Rather, because taxpayers' the owner by the Government and the projects were regarded as
money is being spent, either directly through provision of the atypical. These two factors acted as a disincentive for the owner
finance or indirectly by paying shadow tolls and availability to invest the necessary time and money in capturing and
charges in PPPs, and such projects have a strong public interest explicitly codifying the lessons from these projects. The authors
dimension, project effectiveness should be seen as an important conclude that without such an investment in codified knowl-
sub-set of policy effectiveness. This brings into play notions of edge, the public sector will be constrained in its ability to act as
democratic legitimacy and accountability. Here legitimacy refers an intelligent owner and ensure project legitimacy, to define
to the extent to which a project is seen as acceptable by the public. clear roles and lines of responsibility, and to extract good value
Does the project deliver on the policy promises made by for money from private sector contractors.
democratically elected politicians and is it therefore regarded as The paper by Santandrea, Sironi, Grassi and Georgino focuses
a legitimate expression of their mandate? Moreover, is the public our attention on questions of project efficiency and accountability.
sector owner intelligent or capable enough to guard against They analyse a dataset from 706 UK PFI projects and conclude
abuses of power and to ensure the legitimacy of a project that the value for money achieved is correlated with the
delivered in their name? Accountability refers to the need for competitiveness of the private equity market used to finance
those involved in major public projects, both owners and each project. So, a highly concentrated equity market presents a
contractors, to have clear roles and lines of responsibility so substantial risk to the public purse, because private investors are
that decisions can be properly audited and scrutinised. This powerful enough to demand and receive higher rates of return.
becomes particularly important where the decisions being taken Given changes to PFI policy that require greater involvement of
are highly controversial and need to be explained in the court of equity holders, this paper suggests that the efficiency of PFI
public opinion. projects is intimately linked with the efforts of public sector
The six papers in this special issue amply demonstrate the project owners to undertake the necessary due diligence at the
value of using the thematic dimensions of efficiency, legitimacy front-end to ensure that investors take on an appropriate share of
and accountability to create a bridge between the domains of project risk. The public sector owner is thus accountable for
public policy and project management. As shown in Table 1, we auditing the likely fairness and transparency of equity market
see insights in each paper that speak to at least two and in some competition before opting for the PFI route.
cases all three of these themes. Locatelli, Mariani, Sainati and Greco examine a little
The paper by Aerts, Dooms and Haezendonck suggests how discussed, but crucial issue in their paper on corruption in public
an under-investment in project-based learning might have sector megaprojects. They use institutional theory to develop the

Table 1
Contribution of papers to thematic dimensions.
Thematic dimensions common to public policy and projects
Efficiency Legitimacy Accountability
(performance and (public acceptability) (transparency of
value for money) processes)
Aerts, Dooms and Haezendonck X X X
Project-based learning in PPPs
Santandrea, Sironi, Grassi and Georgino X X
Market concentration risk in PFI projects – impact on VFM
Locatelli, Mariani, Sainati and Greco X X X
Corruption in public projects – institutional causes and consequences
Teo and Bridge X X
Efficient allocation of property rights to determine the appropriateness of PPP mode
Park and Kwak X X
Appropriate choice of procurement method (DB vs. DBB) in public transport projects
Revellino and Mouritsen X X
‘Dingpolitics’ in megaprojects – beyond elite interests, power and politics
 Editorial 223

concept of corrupt project context, a set of circumstances that idea of Dingpolitics to argue that we can only properly
make corruption more likely. They suggest that corruption is understand how a megaproject evolves if we broaden our focus
particularly relevant for large and uncommon projects where the to include all human and non-human actors who are concerned
public sector acts as the owner or as the main contractor. Their about the project. Issues of legitimacy and accountability are
case study from the Italian high-speed railway shows the negative thus recast in terms of two key questions: ‘who has to be taken
impact of corrupt behaviour on project efficiency (cost and time into account’ and ‘what has to be taken into account’.
performance) and the value for money achieved. Their research So, despite the theoretical and methodological diversity evident
also shows that country context is an important influence on in these six papers, there is much here that shows a common
project legitimacy and accountability. Significant discretionary concern with themes of interest to public policy scholars. The
power for public officials, economic rents available to individual public sector has been and will continue to be inextricably bound
policy-makers, and weak institutions all make a country prone to up with the promotion and delivery of major projects and
corruption and undermine legitimacy and accountability. programmes. It makes sense, then, for scholars in the public policy
The papers by Teo and Bridge and Park and Kwak share an and project organising research communities to come together in
interest in the appropriate procurement, contracting and delivery mutually beneficial dialogue. We believe that this special issue
modes for major public sector infrastructure projects. Each paper represents an important step in the development of such a
thus makes a clear contribution to the question of how best to dialogue.
achieve efficient project outcomes. These papers also draw our
attention to matters of project accountability, suggesting that References
public sector decision-makers need and would benefit from a
transparent, rigorous and auditable set of criteria on which to base Bertrand, E., 2005. Two complex lighthouse production systems: the mixed English
and the centralized French systems. In: Finch, J., Orillard, M. (Eds.),
their choice of project delivery mode. Teo and Bridge tackle this
Complexity and the Economy. Implications for Economic Policy, Cheltenham,
issue of decision criteria by building a conceptual framework to Edward Elgar, pp. 191–206.
determine when it is efficient to use the private sector to deliver Brunet, M., Aubry, M., 2016. The three dimensions of a governance framework
a public project through a PPP. Park and Kwak provide an for major public projects. Int. J. Proj. Manag. 34, 1596–1607.
empirically grounded argument in favour of the development of Coase, R.H., 1974. The lighthouse in economics. J. Law Econ. 17, 357–376.
Kanter, R.M., 2015. Move: Putting America's Infrastructure Back in the Lead.
more standardised and objective decision criteria. They analyse
Norton, New York.
data from 1512 public transportation projects in Florida over a ten Kessides, I.N., 2004. Reforming Infrastructure: Privatization, Regulation, and
year period and find notable misalignment between theory and Competition. World Bank, Washington DC.
practice in the choice of project delivery mode. Park and Kwak Lenfle, S., Loch, C., 2010. Lost roots: how project management came to
find that large-scale, environmentally uncertain and technologi- emphasize control over flexibility and novelty. Calif. Manag. Rev. 53, 32–55.
Morris, P.W.G., 1994. The Management of Projects. Thomas Telford, London.
cally challenging projects, which contract theory suggests should
Samuelson, P.A., 1954. The pure theory of public expenditure. Rev. Econ. Stat.
be delivered through a design-build (DB) mode, are often 387–389.
delivered through the more traditional design-bid-build (DBB) Stevens, B., Schieb, P.-A., Andrieu, M., 2006. A cross-sectional perspective on
mode with negative consequences for cost control. They explain the development of global infrastructures to 2030. Infrastructure to 2030:
this in terms of the project owner's desire to maintain control. Telecom, Land Transport, Water and Electricity. OECD, Paris, pp. 13–50.
Winch, G.M. (forthcoming 2017) Megaproject stakeholder management. In:
They also find that contractor selection decisions where the DB
Flyvbjerg, B. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Mega-project Management.
mode is used may not be optimal due to a lack of effective Oxford, OUP.
competition and inadequate transparency on supplier costs and World Economic Forum, 2012. Strategic Infrastructure: Steps to Prioritize and
capabilities. Deliver Infrastructure Effectively and Efficiently. World Economic Forum,
Finally, the paper by Revellino and Mouritsen eschews the Geneva.
typical concern of project management research with efficiency
and performance to focus squarely on broader issues of
democratic legitimacy and accountability. They note that there
Joe Sanderson
is already a strong focus in megaprojects research on the crucial
Procurement and Operations Management Department, Birmingham Business
importance of power and politics for an understanding of how School, University House, B15 2RX, United Kingdom
such projects are managed and delivered. Through an analysis Corresponding author.
of the Italian public sector system for stakeholder management E-mail address: [email protected]
they argue, however, that the common approach to matters of
Graham Winch
politics in projects presents a rather limited, elitist vision of People, Management and Organisations, Alliance Manchester Business School,
legitimacy and accountability, because it focuses on a narrow M13 9SS, United Kingdom
set of stakeholders – interested parties, those with something to E-mail address: [email protected]
win or something to lose in a direct sense. The alternative
vision developed by Revellino and Mouritsen uses Latour's