Submission # 12670
Cross-divisional Professional Development Workshop
Title: Management at the Public-private Interface: Insights from the World of Infrastructure
Potential Primary Sponsor: Operations Management Division
Other Potential Sponsors: Technology and Innovation Management, International Management,
Organization and Management Theory
Organizer and moderator: Nuno Gil, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Manchester Business
School, The University of Manchester.
Submission # 12670
Abstract
The aim of this cross-divisional PDW is to create a forum to further explore some key insights that
emerged from a cross-divisional PDW held in Chicago for which the Operations Management division
acted as primary sponsor. In particular, a key insight that emerged from the Chicago PDW on
Infrastructure meets Business: Building new Bridges, mending Old Ones related to the best way to
position research on new infrastructure development. The need for new infrastructure assets has grown
dramatically around the world in the last decades. This need triggered a galloping involvement of the
private sector in the activities of public infrastructure renewal, development, and operations. It has also
triggered the interest of pension funds and other private equity investors, leading to the emergence of
new investment vehicles supplementing traditional bond issues. But as an empirical setting,
infrastructure has received very limited attention at the Academy although its peculiarities ─ durable
and immobile assets, fragmented supply chains, complex private-public interfaces, and capital
investments with long gestation and payback periods ─ suggest that infrastructure offers a rich field for
scholarly inquiry as well as for testing extant theories and tools. The discussion at the Chicago PDW
suggests that challenges in managing and organizing new infrastructure developments and operations
can be positioned as empirical realizations suitable to investigate fundamental research questions
affecting the management of projects, services, and operations that unfold at the interface between the
public and the private sectors. This proposal for a new PDW aims to further explore this opportunity.
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Submission # 12670
Introduction
The aim of this cross-divisional PDW is to create a forum to further explore some key insights that
emerged from a cross-divisional PDW held in Chicago for which the Operations Management division
acted as primary sponsor. In particular, a key insight that emerged from the Chicago PDW on
Infrastructure meets Business: Building new Bridges, mending Old Ones related to the best way to
position research on new infrastructure development. The need for new infrastructure assets (e.g.,
power plants, sewerage systems, water distribution systems, airports, railways, hospitals, schools) has
been growing dramatically around the world in the last decades. This need triggered a galloping
involvement of the private sector in the activities of public infrastructure renewal, development, and
operations. It has also triggered the interest of pension funds and other private equity investors, leading
to the emergence of new investment vehicles supplementing traditional bond issues, including public
sale and acquisition of infrastructure companies, and public listing of infrastructure funds and funds of
infrastructure funds. But as an empirical setting, infrastructure has received very limited attention at
the Academy although its peculiarities ─ durable and immobile assets, fragmented supply chains,
complex private-public interfaces, and capital investments with long gestation and payback periods ─
suggest that infrastructure offers a rich field for scholarly inquiry as well as for testing extant theories
and tools. The discussion at the Chicago PDW suggests that challenges in managing and organizing
new infrastructure developments and operations can be positioned as empirical realizations suitable to
investigate fundamental research questions affecting the management of projects, services, and
operations that unfold at the interface between the public and the private sectors. This proposal for a
new PDW aims to further explore this opportunity.
Accordingly, the PDW in Montreal will bring together a panel of speakers who, building upon
empirical data grounded on infrastructure, address fundamental research questions for management
and organization at the public-private interface. In doing so, the research agenda is positioned in a way
relevant both for scholars and practitioners, allowing to showcase a number of contributions surfacing
from studies grounded in infrastructure settings. Specifically, we aim to organize two roundtables, one
where the unit of the analysis is the capital project or programme, and another where the unit of
analysis is the architecture of the industry. One theorist on management and organization at the publicprivate interface– Professor Peter Klein - will then reflect on the extent the studies relate and can
contribute to debates ongoing at the academy, as well as shed light on opportunities still unnoticed to
use infrastructure-grounded studies as a means to contribute to theory and advance our knowledge.
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Submission # 12670
Noteworthy, this process started in 2007 with a first PDW sponsored by the OM division on
The Management of Large Engineering (Infrastructure) Projects: Debating a Research Agenda
(Philadelphia). This first PDW planted the seed for the Chicago PDW and for a special issue of
California Management Review on Infrastructure meets Business (2009). Interesting, after the PDW in
Chicago, a book publisher (Routledge) expressed strong interest in this series of PDWs, and in
capturing and incorporating this work in the form of an edited book. While it was felt premature to do
so after the second PDW since the precise connection between practice and theory was still being
explored, the time has now finally arrived to close off this intellectual journey with an edited book. We
believe the edited book resulting from this PDW will then set the beginning of a follow up journey,
which we hope will foster many conversations with significant relevance both to practice and theory.
Overview of the Workshop
Objectives:
The PDW will create a forum to discuss how recent contributions grounded in infrastructure contribute
to our understanding of fundamental research questions affecting the management of projects,
operations, and services that unfold at the public-private interface. Specifically, the objectives are:

Explore the translation of the lean management paradigm to capital projects unfolding at the
public-private interface

Discuss capital projects as time-bound opportunities for technological innovation at the publicprivate interface

Review developments of public sector procurement practices and client capabilities

Discuss the creation and global replication of sustainable projects at the private-public interface

Analyze alternative industry architectures shaping the public-private interface through an
application of industry architecture concepts to infrastructure.
Structure of the PDW: This 2-hour PDW will be organised as follows:
Introduction: (15 minutes)
a. General Welcome
b. Organiser introduces the PDW, elucidating how infrastructure studies are relevant to address
fundamental questions on management and organization at the private-public interface.
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Submission # 12670
c. Session organiser provides an overview of the structure of the PDW, previewing the schedule
of activities, and introducing the speakers
Phase 1: (30 minutes): Roundtable I – Capital Development at the Public-Private Interface
This session aims to engage speakers and audience in a debate around capital development at the
public-private interface. The unit of analysis here is the capital project, e.g., airport, power plant,
hospital. Different theories will be used to yield insights about how to best develop and deliver new
assets, key components of critical socio-technological systems such as air travel, energy, and heath
care. Four speakers agreed to deliver presentations:
Glenn Ballard, Research Director, Lean Construction Institute; Director, Project Production Systems
Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley.
The organizational management philosophy pioneered by Toyota has been successfully adapted for
project production systems under the title 'lean project delivery', but applications to date have
been primarily in the private sector. Some aspects of lean management are challenged in public sector
projects. Case studies from private and public sector projects will be used to explore two such
challenges: 1) determination of allowable cost in project capital planning, and 2) alignment of
commercial interests between public owner and private service providers. Project case studies are from
the healthcare sector in the United States.
Andrew Davies, Lars Frederiksen, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group, Imperial College Business
School
This presentation offers an introduction and first findings on knowledge integration and replication
processes from the inductive study of the design phase of the Dongtan, ecocity located outside
Shanghai, China. The unit of analysis is the engineering design firm delivering the integrated masterplan for a zero-carbon city project. Theoretically the study addresses: (1) the role of individuals and
capability development in the creation of an innovative approach to ecocity urban design and (2) the
replication of that approach across other ecocity projects.
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Submission # 12670
Phase 2: (45 minutes): Roundtable II – Understanding Industry Architectures at the PublicPrivate Interface
This session aims to engage speakers and audience in a debate around industry architectures at the
public-private interface, exploring alternative ways to meaningfully represent these architectures and
the role of public policy. Three speakers agreed to deliver presentations:
Donald Lessard, Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management, Global Economics and
Management (GEM), MIT Sloan School of Management
A key common feature of major infrastructure undertakings are a set of complex interactions between
the focal system and the larger society, cutting across public and private domains. Thus project
architectures must span these levels, and address these interactions in reaching manageable levels of
complexity. Based on an examination of large-scale civil and energy projects, this presentation
explores ways of representing these cross-level architectures and the resulting complexity, and
compares and contrasts them with those of complex projects largely within a single domain, e.g.,
software and large-scale manufacturing.
Jochen Markard & Bernhard Truffer, Cirus - Innovation Research in Utility Sectors, Swiss Federal
Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Switzerland
This presentation explores some of the infrastructure sectors' key characteristics to better understand
the conditions for innovation and transformation processes in infrastructures. It argues that durable and
capital intensive assets together with a high degree of systemness generate considerable inertia and
rather hinder far-reaching transformations. At the same time, capital intensity and massive investment
needs as well as negative environmental impacts represent inherent sources for change. A high degree
of regulation and an often large share of public utilities also play a key role for sector dynamics.
Conceptual frameworks for studying infrastructures and making policy recommendations have to take
into account these particularities and the close interplay of techno-economic, organizational and
institutional characteristics.
Jeffrey Lee Funk, National University of Singapore
This presentation will use concepts from the literature on industry architecture to analyze the publicprivate interfaces that are found in infrastructure. It focuses on IT-related infrastructure and the
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Submission # 12670
growing importance of so-called “open systems” in this IT infrastructure. It shows how the concept of
industry architecture can be used to represent the degree of openness in IT-related infrastructure and it
analyzes the degrees of openness and the types of events, including government policies, that have led
(or have not led) to the emergence of open systems in for example, broadcasting, computers, and
mobile phones.
Phase 3 (30minutes). Peter G. Klein (Discussant) Division of Applied Social Sciences, & Associate
Director, Contracting and Organizations Research Institute, University of Missouri
Peter has kindly agreed to take the role of discussant. He will build upon his scholarly work, including
a recent inductive study for which he is lead author Toward a Theory of Public Entrepreneurship
(abstract is reproduced below):
This paper explores innovation, experimentation, and creativity in the public domain and in the public
interest. Researchers in various disciplines have studied public entrepreneurship, but there is little work
in management and economics on the nature, incentives, constraints and boundaries of
entrepreneurship directed to public ends. We identify a framework for analyzing public
entrepreneurship and its relationship to private entrepreneurial behaviour. We submit that public and
private entrepreneurship share essential features but differ critically regarding the definition and
measurement of objectives, the nature of the selection environment, and the opportunities for rentseeking. We describe four levels of analysis for studying public entrepreneurship, provide examples,
and suggest new research directions.
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