Structural Equation Model of Strategies for Successful Stakeholder Management in PPPs

Abstract

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become an increasingly popular choice for the delivery of infrastructure facilities in the recent years. With the involvement of multiple numbers of stakeholders in a PPP project, stakeholder management (SM) plays a decisive role in project success. However, many issues in the recent PPP projects in Australia as well as around the world can be directly or indirectly related to the SM concerns of a project. The correct selection of SM strategies and a proper framework will help to solve most of the current SM related issues in PPP projects. In an attempt to understand these preemptive SM strategies and their links to SM management related issues in PPP projects, a hierarchical structural model was established. Subsequently, by employing the structural equation modelling technique, the model adapts a total of 34 SM strategies and 12 SM related issues. Based on the survey data collected across the industry experts who have exposure to a various number of PPP projects in Australia the results of the model confirmed that the stakeholder engagement is a key to minimize the SM related issues in the PPP projects. Further, interestingly stakeholder monitoring and SM related issues has a positive significant relationship suggesting that more the stakeholder monitoring might lead to more issues. Finally, the relationships between the main tasks of SM were confirmed via the model. With a clear understanding of the significance of these SM strategies in PPP projects the findings could potentially contribute to the PPP project success.