Business community partnerships in New Zealand : understanding experiences of 'partnership'

This research examined business community partnerships that address social issues. The study demonstrated that 'pragmatic' versions of partnership are more concerned with the self-interests of the stakeholders, rather than shared community concerns. The findings highlight trust, power and the negotiation of mutual interests as critical issues to understanding business community partnerships in the NZ context.

Risk allocation in public-private partnership projects

Both the increasing private participation in public projects and the critical importance of appropriate risk allocation to the success of public-private partnership (PPP) projects justify specific research on the risk allocation practice in PPP projects, particularly whether the practice is value-for-money driven. In this paper, the risk allocation in construction projects is examined firstly. The risks associated with PPP projects and the concept of optimal risk allocation are then reviewed. More importantly, the risk allocation practice in PPP projects is examined, particularly in the Australian context. Important issues, such as the current practice, the governments' accountability, and achieving efficient allocation, are discussed. The discussion presented in this paper is expected to justify and elicit further research on how to achieve efficient risk allocation in PPP projects

Exploring critical factors for achieving successful risk allocation in public-private partnership projects

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as a procurement mechanism for infrastructure projects is becoming increasingly common. This is principally due to the value for money opportunities it offers the public sector sponsors. This value for money is primarily achieved through the optimisation of the allocation of risk inherent in the project being transferred from the public sector sponsors onto private sector bidders. This paper analyses the influence that these factors have on successful risk allocation with the aim of providing clearer parameters for optimal risk allocation in PPP projects. Through an extensive review of existing literature, the critical success factors for optimal risk allocation in PPP projects are identified. It is found that the optimisation of risk allocation in PPP projects is critically influenced by the identified factors, which will undoubtedly aid in the successful outcome for future PPP projects.

The efficacy of partnership evaluation and its impact on alliance transformation : a case study 12 months post evaluation

Partnerships involving higher education, governments, and industry have been recognised as important vehicles for engaging community, leveraging knowledge, and sharing potential resources. The critical need for these partnerships in rural and regional locations has been of particular note. Partnership evaluation can serve a critical function of informing continuous improvement and may therefore assist the evaluated agencies to work towards responsive transformational change. The ability for a partnership to adapt and change may aid in their sustainability. Despite the potentially important role of partnership evaluation, the development of tools that measure partnership are at an early stage. Partnership evaluation is rarely reflected upon in the published literature. Moreover, benefits and reflections of the efficacy of evaluations 12 months post analysis is rare in the published literature. Therefore, a brief review of partnership approaches and measurement tools are presented. The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the efficacy of an evaluation conducted 12 months previously of a partnership between Deakin University, the Department of Health and Department of Human Services (Barwon South West Region), known as the Deakin/DH/DHS Strategic Alliance. This case study reviews several tools/metrics utilised. The efficacy of the evaluation tools is discussed. Those metrics, underlying the tools which contributed to positive change in partnerships are discussed.

A partnership in induction and mentoring : noticing how we improve our practice

This article focuses on the induction and mentoring of early career teachers. The context is a suburban primary school in Victoria, Australia, as the school develops mentoring networks for graduate and beginning teachers. Instigated from a school–university partnership, the research draws from the traditions of practitioner research. In the research design and likewise in successful mentoring the importance of a genuine commitment to the discipline of reflective practice or what we have come to describe as “ noticing ” (Mason, 2002; Moss et al., 2004) is illustrated. The approach offers a new method for small scale–close up research in teacher education.

Glimpses of generative practice : constructing pre-service teachers' learning in partnership

In this paper, the authors describe a program to enhance pre-service teachers' mathematical and pedagogical knowledge through a partnership with middle years teachers and learners in a primary school. The authors wanted to investigate how pre-service teachers' experience of teaching mathematics could enhance both their knowledge of mathematics and the development of generative practices. The findings have inspired the development of similar partnerships with other primary schools.

Multimedia authoring : human-computer partnership for harvesting metadata from the right sources

This chapter takes a look at the task of creating multimedia authoring tools for the amateur media creator, and the problems unique to the undertaking. It argues that a deep understanding of both the media creation process, together with insight into the precise nature of the relative strengths of computers and users, given the domain of application, is needed before this gap can be bridged by software technology. These issues are further demonstrated within the context of a novel media collection environment, including a real- world example of an occasion filmed in order to automatically create two movies of distinctly different styles. The authors hope that such tools will enable amateur videographers to produce technically polished and aesthetically effective media, regardless of their level of expertise.

Factor analysis of partners' commitment to risk management in public-private partnership projects

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate and uncover key determinants that could explain partners' commitment to risk management in public-private partnership projects so that partners' risk management commitment is taken into the consideration of optimal risk allocation strategies.

Design/methodology/approach – Based on an extensive literature review and an examination of the purchasing power parity (PPP) market, an industry-wide questionnaire survey was conducted to collect the data for a confirmatory factor analysis. Necessary statistical tests are conducted to ensure the validity of the analysis results.

Findings – The factor analysis results show that the procedure of confirmatory factor analysis is statistically appropriate and satisfactory. As a result, partners' organizational commitment to risk management in public-private partnerships can now be determined by a set of components, namely general attitude to a risk, perceived one's own ability to manage a risk, and the perceived reward for bearing a risk.

Practical implications – It is recommended, based on the empirical results shown in this paper, that, in addition to partners' risk management capability, decision-makers, both from public and private sectors, should also seriously consider partners' risk management commitment. Both factors influence the formation of optimal risk allocation strategies, either by their individual or interacting effects. Future research may therefore explore how to form optimal risk allocation strategies by integrating organizational capability and commitment, the determinants and measurement of which have been established in this study.

Originality/value – This paper makes an original contribution to the general body of knowledge on risk allocation in large-scale infrastructure projects in Australia adopting the procurement method of public-private partnership. In particular, this paper has innovatively established a measurement model of organisational commitment to risk management, which is crucial to determining optimal risk allocation strategies and in turn achieving project success. The score coefficients of all obtained components can be used to construct components by linear combination so that commitment to risk management can be measured. Previous research has barely focused on this topic.

Pakistan-China bilateral relations 2001-2011 : a deepening but cautious partnership

Last year (2011) marked the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Pakistan and China. The bilateral relationship has deepened significantly since 1951, with both countries benefiting from this relationship. However, Pakistan would like to deepen it even further, while China is more pragmatic and cautious. There are irritants, notably the killing of Chinese citizens, the presence of Uighur militants in Pakistan and their different interests in Afghanistan, which could put some stress on the relationship. While the relationship will continue to grow, China is not about to displace the US as Pakistan’s major economic and military aid provider.

Identifying attributes contributing to environmental sustainability of public-private partnership infrastructure projects

Due to increasing demands for new infrastructure and an aim to reduce initial public investment, Australian government agencies are increasingly using public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a form of delivery for infrastructure projects. Environmentally, there is growing pressure for the building industry in general to become more sustainable. Moreover, as the built environment continues to grow each year, the performance of buildings as a whole will need to continually improve purely for national energy consumption to remain stable. Based on a systematic and extensive review on relevant literature, this paper has identified the key attributes that will influence the environmental sustainability of infrastructure completed through a PPP. The key attributes are grouped into five groups defined by whom or what has the majority of control over the attribute. Meanwhile, the key attributes are explored and their influence on environmental sustainability justified. This paper was able to not only identify significant factors involved in creating environmental sustainability in infrastructure PPPs, but also trends of the key attributes. It has been found that (1) the longevity of the contract in a PPP project allows greater innovation into environmental sustainability than traditional methods of procurement, (2) innovation is a requirement for the improving upon environmental performance in the built environment, (3) improvements to environmental sustainability relies upon a positive relationship between economic and environmental benefits, and (4) the key attributes for PPP projects are decided upon relatively early in the contract. Due to space limit, detailed discussion on each of the identified attributes is not provided in this paper. Nonetheless, further research direction is discussed.