Trust Transparency and PPP

This paper argues how transparency can increase trust and therefore indirectly enhances the results of Public Private Partnerships in complex construction projects. Complex construction projects, e.g. large infrastructure or urban development projects, with public client organizations and private contractors, frequently run into problems. Public Private Partnership projects are characterised by an enduring relationship between the public client organization and the private contractor. Trust between these parties is seen as an important condition for successful completion of such projects, but trust is difficult to build in a sector where distrust between clients and building contractors is endemic. In this paper we assert that structures and processes that increase transparency regarding the interests of parties help to increase trust under these conditions. We theorize about how transparency can help to build trust and we analyse the relationship between transparency and trust in two construction projects. In these projects transparency regarding interests, or the lack of it, led to trust or distrust between the parties. Based on this analysis we review various structural and processual measures that, by increasing transparency regarding interests, can help parties to build and maintain trust over the lifecycle of a large public-private construction project.