My Industrial PhD project is entitled “Management of successful Public-Private Partnerships in an international perspective”. The project’s point of departure is the observation that the existing literature on Public-Private Partnerships focuses on technical and formal aspects of this form of co-operation. However, recent research has shown that successful partnerships also depend heavily on existing management strategies after drawing up and signing the contract. Thus, the objective of this project will be to study informal and management-related aspects of Public-Private Partnerships.

The first challenge will be to establish a theoretical framework for how to observe management strategies in Public-Private Partnerships. For this purpose, the project will draw on the literature on management of alliances between private firms. Hence, the first partial aim of the project will be to elaborate how alliance literature can contribute to the analyses of Public-Private Partnerships. How do cross-sector partnerships differ from alliances, as there are both public and private organizations involved? Is the distinction between public and private organizations overstated, or should essential structural and institutional dissimilarities be taken into account?

The second aim of my thesis will subsequently be to identify successful management-strategies for Public-Private Partnerships from an international perspective. By including partnerships from three different countries (Denmark, Germany and the Slovak Republic) I explore how success and focus on management-strategies depend on individual and project specific aspects. I also seek to highlight institutional factors that influence management in partnerships. Hence, the purpose is to identify specific management skills and instruments, and relate them to a broader institutional perspective.

Finally, the project will also forward a post-structural discussion of how the examined aspects of management affect our construction of “what cross-sector management should be”, and how this construction limits and facilitates observations and possible actions in Public-Private Partnerships. The overall ambition of the project is therefore to draw on different theoretical angles to allow for a “whole picture” of the different challenges of management in Public-Private Partnerships.

Schulze, Christiane (2009). Offentlig-private partnerskaber: Et projekt om begrebsforståelse og partnerskabskommunikation. CBS