Improving project performance of PPP/PFI project-based Organisations

The concept of PPP/PFI promises a radical change to improve project performance and better service delivery to the public but evidence on cost and quality gains seems to be limited considering the financial commitments entered by governments around the world. This has encouraged significant number of researches based on diverse PFI projects in the United Kingdom to understand how PPP/PFI projects have performed based on cost, time, quality and operations. Nevertheless, these reports present inconsistent project performance outcomes as different data and methodologies are presented which can lead to more confusion to understand how well PFI projects have performed. Overall, the criticisms levelled against the construction industry concerning the performance of PFI projects executed have not been encouraging. Although, previous studies have identified and investigated factors that can assist to improve project performance recent studies still suggest that how to improve project performance is a perennial problem to construction professionals and project management researchers. In addressing this problem, this paper aims to re-examine these factors to consider which positively influences project performance. Also, the paper proposes the network perspective as a means to attract and transform new knowledge to improve construction delivery processes. By implementing the network perspective, practitioners and managers can explore new areas to create value to improve their project performance. This paper empirically identifies significant factors in the context of PFI projects to improve project performance, drawing upon case studies and questionnaire survey of PFI practitioners involved in on-going PFI projects in the United Kingdom. The main findings show that: 1) collaborative networks; 2) sustainable construction products; 3) clarity in project design for buildability; 4) life-cycle costing; and 5) benchmarking and market testing are significant factors to improve PFI project performance in the construction industry. Overall, the findings of this paper show that PFI projects are no different from non-PFI projects as these issues are critically applicable to all projects. Hence, the practical implication is that practitioners and managers can use the findings to plan and enhance the performance of their projects. Also, it provides guidance on how the network approach can be a potential means to improve the performance of construction projects.