(Per)Forming a public private partnership: the agency of accounting and other practices

This thesis investigates the accounting and other practices performed as part of trials experienced by interested actors in forming a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. Prompted by the high visibility of PPP schemes and a lack of understanding about the situated roles and effects of accounting and other practices in motivating and appraising such schemes, two practice-oriented research problems are investigated. Firstly, how does an ambition for a PPP scheme form in particular times and places. Secondly, what is the agency of accounting and other appraisal processes in trialling a proposed PPP scheme. Following an introductory section, this thesis proceeds via three papers. The first paper reviews the extant accounting-related literature on PPP schemes along five research themes adapted from Broadbent & Laughlin (1999, 2004), highlighting the literary contributions and future research opportunities in this area. The second and third papers focus on the experiences of interested actors in trialling possibilities for a public housing PPP in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), using field-based research. The aim of the second paper is to understand how an ambition for a PPP can become accepted through efforts to ‘envisage value’ for such schemes in particular times and places. The third paper investigates the roles and effects of accounting and other appraisal practices mobilised to translate an ambition for a PPP scheme into an agreement that promises a ‘Value for Money’ (VFM) outcome. Collectively, these papers contribute to extant knowledge about the involvement of accounting and other practices in the performance of ‘value’ in PPP schemes by: (i) illustrating how an ambition for a PPP scheme forms through ‘envisaging value’; (ii) explicating the agency of accounting and other practices in conferring VFM with situated meaning; (iii) contradicting the dominant status attributed to the involvement of accounting calculations in PPP schemes; and (iv) highlighting the various ways in which interested actors can cope with and act in the face of significant uncertainties. Overall, these contributions further our understanding of how proposed PPP schemes are (per)formed through the complex of activities (including accounting) and interests tied to the achievement of such schemes