The discursive legitimation of profit in public-private service delivery

Abstract

Public-private partnerships are a topic of continuing interest for accounting researchers. However, as yet there are only a few studies focusing on the post-implementation phase of PPPs. In particular, even though scholars have criticized PPPs for inflating the profits of private partners at the expense of the public sector and citizens, they have rarely scrutinized the public debates whereby the legitimacy of PPP organizations' profits are societally contested and debated. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the processes of profit (de)legitimation by examining the construction of senses of (il)legitimacy in public-private service delivery. These processes are examined in the case of Tallinn Water, an Estonian public-private water company. Our findings suggest that the main themes debated revolved around the following questions: What is a normal profit for a public-private monopoly? Who or what is the ultimate authority in such matters? What is morally appropriate behaviour for such a company? Our findings also indicate that even relatively affordable prices and high performance levels do not suffice to create legitimacy for an organization that tries to make excessive gains from the provision of something that is generally regarded as a human right.

Investigating the implementation of and accountability in PPPs: a case study in public water management

“…Over the years, public authorities around the world have made considerable efforts to improve access to potable water for rural and urban populations by using new technologies (Chen et al, 2020;Post et al, 2019) and various forms of new public management and new public governance (Burke and Demirag, 2017;Kirkpatrick et al, 2006;Koppenjan and Koliba, 2013). In developed countries, for instance, public authorities often use public sector-owned corporations to fulfil this need (Peda and Vinnari, 2019;Vinnari and N€ asi, 2008). Emerging countries have fewer possibilities to use their own corporations effectively.…”

Public–private merger integration as a dynamic process of legitimation

“…As Nutt noted (Nutt, 1999, p. 351), “the more public the organization, the greater the difficulty”. Therefore, strategic decisions are made in a complex, pluralistic, and political context in which goals are not clearly defined (Peda & Vinnari, 2020). Bozeman (2007) underlined that two very different types of authority constrain organizations with both public and private status and yet also derive their resources from them: political authority and economic authority.…”

Discursive Institutionalism as Framework of Analysis for Multi-Vector Power Relations in Organizing Political Parties

“…In the context of political parties, the discursive process of various discursive actions runs like what is called the struggle for legitimacy through the aggregation of discursive abilities by discursive groups. From the perspective of Discursive Institutionalism, the struggle for legitimacy is socially constructed from social practices carried out by constituents who react differently (Peda & Vinnari, 2019). The complexity of the role of actors and interests between actors in political parties as explained by Intra-Party Democracy gets an additional explanation of how relations between actors that run inclusive in matters related to party policy and attraction of interest within it which is also related to elements of external forces and plural communities for broader public legitimacy (Thévenot, 2019).…”