Determinants of public satisfaction with an Urban Water environment treatment PPP project in Xuchang, China

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City dwellers are critical stakeholders in the case of urban water environment treatment Public-Private Partnership projects (UWETP-PPP). This type of partnership is increasingly popular in China. Accordingly, public satisfaction should be considered in any performance evaluation of such a partnership. However, little attention has been paid to identify factors that affect public satisfaction with UWETP-PPP in scholarly studies. To address this gap, this case study aims to apply structural equation modeling (SEM) to explain and identify the determinants of public satisfaction with UWETP-PPP in Xuchang, China. Furthermore, the findings from this case study are intended to inform the development of more effective management strategies for a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) using importance-performance analysis (IPA). A total of 240 questionnaires on public satisfaction were collected through the case of the water environment treatment and ecological restoration project in Xuchang, China. This paper firstly employs exploratory factor analysis to extract 6 primary factors from 33 preliminary indicators that affect the public satisfaction with an UWETP-PPP to determine the factor structure of the model. Then, confirmatory factor analysis was used to verify the goodness of fit between the model and original data. Finally, IPA was applied to assist SPV in diagnosing potential management defects and determine the priority of water environment treatment for the sample of respondents based on SEM analysis. These findings provide a reference for the evaluation of public satisfaction in eco-environmental PPP projects. Moreover, the findings can inform strategic analysis to improve the allocation of limited resources more effectively.