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Abstract:
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This thesis addresses the need, development and management of trust in Public-Private
Partnerships (PPPs), an issue that thus far has received only very little attention. For this
purpose, the dissertation contributes with four separate articles, of which the first two explore
the main concepts – PPPs and trust – while the last two present the empirical exploration of
trusting in PPPs by drawing on four in-depth case studies.
The exploration of the PPP concept in the first article focuses on the definitory and classificatory
practices across disciplinary and professional fields and contributes with an inductive map of the
dominant patterns. The review of PPP publications argues that the main divergence lies in the
focus on two differing dimensions. While a first group focuses on PPPs as a new way of
distributing responsibilities across public and private partners a second group defines PPPs as a
new means for joint decision-making and interactive collaboration between public and private
partners. For the thesis it is especially the second dimension – the relational - that becomes
relevant when trust moves centre-stage.
In the second article, the dissertation addresses trust conceptualizations in an interorganizational
setting. The article argues for a more processual approach to (re)embed trust in
time and space. Following, the paper develops a processual framework for studying interorganizational
trusting as ever evolving, always embedded and not least rooted in individual
experiences of organizational members from various organizational levels. Finally, the article
highlights the constitutive importance of contingency not only creating the need for trust but
also its precondition. It is because we experience the future as open (contingent) that we are in
need and able to form trust, i.e. suspend doubts and form positive expectations about another’s
future behaviour despite he/she has the possibility for alternative actions. |
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