Road roles Using gaming simulation as decision technique for future asset management practices

Introducing public–private partnerships for metropolitan subways in China: what is the evidence?

“…Freedom of contractors to design, construct, maintain and operate independently without outside support, monitoring and infringement require skills and a sense of responsibility that can only grow over time. In most nations where innovative contracting has been tried for some time, explicit efforts were made to formulate definitions and lists of quality demands and requirements through which contractor performance can be better monitored and evaluated (Altamirano et al, 2008). These indicators or requirements were formulated at higher aggregation-levels to prevent public agencies from mingling with technical specifications that were under the responsibility of contractors, while allowing them to maintain an eye on general service quality.…”

“…According to Guo, China still has quite along way to go. On the other hand, it can be questioned whether all countries around the world will inevitably follow exactly the same path (Altamirano et al, 2008). When adopting foreign institutions, the latter often merge with domestic pattern of social interaction and acquire a distinct national flavour (de Jong et al, 2002).…”

Governing and (re)producing project governance

“…For researching the delivery of public infrastructure, they typically make use of classical game theory and experimental behavioural economics (Altamirano & de Jong, 2009) with the aim of testing (and predicting) how different contractual incentives lead to specific patterns of behaviour. These games resemble the controlled setting or closed system of experimental research to "safely" explore/learn how specific rules would shape collaborative/adversarial relations in reality (Altamirano, Herder, & De Jong, 2008;Dzeng & Wang, 2017;Nassar, 2003). However, from a critical realist perspective which we adopt here, "it is a condition of the intelligibility of experimental activity that in an experiment the experimenter is a causal agent of a sequence of events but not of the causal law which the sequence of events enables him to identify" (Bhaskar, 1997, p. 11).…”

“…Likewise, we re-framed serious gaming aligned with the philosophical standpoint of Critical Realism. Serious games for procurement and project governance resembles the controlled-setting or closed system of experimental research, to safely explore/learn how specific rules would shape collaborative/ adversarial relations in reality (Altamirano et al, 2008;Dzeng & Wang, 2017;Nassar, 2003). However, scholars relying on social experimentation run the risk of taking outcomes only achievable in a closed environment as misleading metaphors of organization dynamics inherently open to contingency and creativity (Archer, 2013).…”

“…The interaction at the market level is driven by competition and regulated by the road authority (Altamirano et al, 2008). The road authority invites to tender for a 20-year maintenance contract, exploring multiple types of contracting alternatives.…”