Public–private partnerships: procedural over results-driven accountability

AuthorAnne-Marie Reynaers,Salvador Parrado
Published date01 December 2021
Date01 December 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319864161
Subject MatterArticles
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Public–private
partnerships: procedural
over results-driven
accountability
Salvador Parrado
National University of Distance Education (UNED), Spain
Anne-Marie Reynaers
Universidad Aut
onoma de Madrid, Spain
Abstract
The article examines to what extent Dutch and Spanish officials make trade-offs
between process and result accountability during the design, management and adapta-
tion of contracts for public–private partnerships. The countries’ distinct administrative
traditions (legalistic versus managerial-oriented, respectively) are expected to be influ-
ential. Analysing contracts, policy documents and interviews with 89 Dutch and Spanish
project members, the article shows that Dutch administrators focus on outcome
accountability, following the tenets of relational governance, whereas Spanish officials
opt for process accountability in line with the contractual governance framework in
non-clinical services, and for result accountability for clinical services in hospitals.
Points for practitioners
Procedural and results-based accountability are not necessarily alternatives. High
legalistic countries may emphasize process accountability but results-based
accountability is needed to realize the potential from the private-sector operator
delivering public services.
Long-term contracts require that the procurer first sets the results to be achieved
and then work out the more suitable accountability mechanisms.
Corresponding author:
Salvador Parrado, UNED, c/Obispo Trejo, s/n, Madrid 28015, Spain.
Email: sparrado@poli.uned.es
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852319864161
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2021, Vol. 87(4) 962–979
Results-based accountability requires competencies that are not easily found in the
public sector of legalistic countries and this is key for properly giving account of
the contract.
Keywords
accountability, Design–Build–Finance–Maintain–Operate, public–private partnership,
contracting
Introduction
Long-term contracting in which private sector companies take care of the delivery
of public infrastructure and services is an inherent feature of modern governance.
Design–Build–Finance–Maintain–Operate (DBFMO) contracts transfer the
responsibility for the design, construction, maintenance, operation and f‌inance
of public infrastructures and services to private companies for 15 to 30 years
(Reynaers, 2014). The presentiation of these contracts refers to the necessity of
deciding in the present about future features of the contractual relationship
(Macneil, 1974). Presentiation presents numerous challenges to public procurers
(Williamson, 1985) due to the incompleteness of contracts (Poppo and Zenger,
2002) and the inclusion of rules that may not lead to the desired results given the
impossibility of knowing ‘all the causes effecting results in any complex sequence
of events’ (Macneil, 1974: 590). To avoid opportunism, procurers draft fully
detailed contracts (Cruz and Marques, 2013) that reduce transaction costs and
overcome low levels of trust (Akintoye et al., 2003).
DBFMO contracts entail accountability trade-offs in relation to contract gov-
ernance that relate to the extent to which the contract foresees either a strict top-
down rule application by the principal or empowerment of the agent through
dialogue and negotiation. Transaction cost economics and classical contract
theory state that optimal (detailed) contracts have ‘the lowest transaction costs
relative to outcome’, in line with hierarchical governance (Zheng et al., 2008: 44).
However, contracts based on relational governance promote f‌lexibility and infor-
mation exchange, and facilitate the enforcement of obligations (Granovetter,
1985). In these contracts, transactions are based on continuous interactions
based on trust between the contract parties (Brown et al., 2018). Other authors
consider that the hierarchical and relational governance approaches are inter-
changeable and that the benef‌its of one type supersede the benef‌its of the other
(Poppo and Zenger, 2002).
This trade-off relates to responsiveness to changing demands (Koppell, 2005)
and the tension between process and result accountability, as expressed by Patil,
Vieider and Tetlock (2014) with regards to employees’ performance appraisal. On
the one hand, responsiveness refers to potential adaptation to accommodate the
963
Parrado and Reynaers

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