How to embrace the stakeholder in public private partnership decision-making? A theoretical discourse

Stakeholder is the seed of unpredictability and subjectivity in decision-making over the long-lasting, relationship driven, life cycle of PPP projects. However, their conflicting interests, roles and responsibilities alter their level of involvement and importance leading to conflicts which may escalate into litigation, renegotiation or, even worse, project failure. This makes the PPP decision-making highly fragmented, contextual and dynamic. Motivated by a limited relevant research, the current study focuses on integrating the stakeholder into PPP decision-making. For this purpose, PPP specific stakeholders are identified through a content analysis. Further, a conceptual framework for stakeholder integration is devised based on the identified research concentrations obtained through a thematic analysis. The framework consists of three interacting components; issues, process and solutions supported by important considerations identified through an extensive literature review. Additionally, a conceptual mechanism providing rationalization for conflict emergence has been presented, formalising the types of conflict based on the stakeholder relation, and their interaction with the project. The study provides a foundation for proactive conflict and relationship management by treating PPP as a complex arena with multiple stakeholders, drawing upon their theoretical knowledge base.