This thesis aims at investigating the two municipality’s Gislaved and Ljungby. Where the aim is to see if there is any connections, between the type and the degree of public-private partnerships, and the municipalities obtained environment performance. In this essay the starting point is that the environmental performance in the chosen municipalities is good. Interviews among local politicians and representatives for the municipalities plastic industries, has functioned as a way to test the hypothesis. Gislaved and Ljungby have thereafter been compared, in order to see if there is any similarity in the sort and the degree of public-private partnerships, and how that will affect the environmental performance.   The overall questions in this essay are: How can the cooperation among the chosen municipalities and the      local business life be described? What kind of Public-private partnership      exists in the selected municipalities? Is there any difference between the municipalities, referring to      the degree of cooperation between the municipalities and the local      business life? Does the degree of cooperation affect the progress on the environmental      performance?   The end result shows that the local business life doesn’t have any impact on the environmental performance. Although the result just stands for the examined municipalities and cannot be seen as representative for the rest of Sweden´s municipalities.

The thesis provides an analysis, from the institutional perspective, of the factors that are contributing towards mutually beneficial participation in European University Networks. Previous research about institutional networks has concentrated on the networks' perspective on beneficial operational factors. Joining institutional university networks has been stated to be a recent strategic trend in Europe. Therefore it is important to provide detailed data from the institutional point of view to enable other institutions to make informed decisions about joining such networks. The University of Tartu provides an interesting case study on its experience of participation in the Coimbra Group and the Utrecht Network. Strategic management theory was used as a theoretical framework for this analysis. Relevant documents were reviewed. Twenty three e-mail interviews were conducted among the University of Tartu administrators, faculty members and representatives of both networks. Ten cross-cutting themes were identified as having impact on network participation.

This research explores the changing role of the private sector in provincial prison infrastructure expansion in Ontario. After contracting out the operations of a new prison and facing much resistance, the provincial government began delivering prisons by maintaining public operations but financing them privately through public-private partnerships. To understand the political and economic impacts of these changes, I analyzed relevant government documents and interviews I conducted with 15 key informants from government agencies, firms and other organizations involved in creating, implementing and resisting prison expansion policies between 1995 and today. I show how changes in infrastructure governance were shaped by contestation between the state, international financial investors, private firms in Canada, labour and others involved in prison systems. Through public-private partnerships, the role of government shifted towards that of market facilitator, and as infrastructure was placed on global debt markets, international financial capital played a new part in prison development.

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South African infrastructure has traditionally been funded through general government budgets and dedicated taxes and fees rather than tolls. However since the early 1980's, the South African Government has adopted a strategy of tolling portions of the national road infra-structure either through PPP's or toll routes owned by the SANRA. This paper investigates whether the approach of tolling the road infrastructure together with the financing, construction and maintenance of roads by means of PPP's is the most efficient economic manner to finance such endeavours. A case study analysis of TRAC, a concession toll road project, highlights the theoretical economic inefficiencies which are primarily present in relation to marginal operating and external costs, misallocation of resources, the costs of collecting tolls, contractual efficiency as well as the efficiency in raising capital. The decision to toll routes, albeit theoretically economically inefficient, is however contextualized when viewed against the funding needs of Government, particularly in light of the fact that the South African government will continue to experience severe funding shortfalls for road maintenance, rehabilitation, and construction. However, highway needs are increasing yet public funding sources are constrained by limited resources together with spending priorities in other areas. Ostensibly the decision to toll a route is not based on theoretical economic efficiency issues but rather on a strategy to lessen the financial burden on the state by freeing up more money with the implementation of toll roads. This strategy thus allows the state to maintain those roads funded through the national fiscus by tolling certain routes and thereby continue to maintain and expand the road infrastructure with the given financial constraints. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.

The thesis provides an analysis, from the institutional perspective, of the factors that are contributing towards mutually beneficial participation in European University Networks. Previous research about institutional networks has concentrated on the networks' perspective on beneficial operational factors. Joining institutional university networks has been stated to be a recent strategic trend in Europe. Therefore it is important to provide detailed data from the institutional point of view to enable other institutions to make informed decisions about joining such networks. The University of Tartu provides an interesting case study on its experience of participation in the Coimbra Group and the Utrecht Network. Strategic management theory was used as a theoretical framework for this analysis. Relevant documents were reviewed. Twenty three e-mail interviews were conducted among the University of Tartu administrators, faculty members and representatives of both networks. Ten cross-cutting themes were identified as having impact on network participation.

This research explores the changing role of the private sector in provincial prison infrastructure expansion in Ontario. After contracting out the operations of a new prison and facing much resistance, the provincial government began delivering prisons by maintaining public operations but financing them privately through public-private partnerships. To understand the political and economic impacts of these changes, I analyzed relevant government documents and interviews I conducted with 15 key informants from government agencies, firms and other organizations involved in creating, implementing and resisting prison expansion policies between 1995 and today. I show how changes in infrastructure governance were shaped by contestation between the state, international financial investors, private firms in Canada, labour and others involved in prison systems. Through public-private partnerships, the role of government shifted towards that of market facilitator, and as infrastructure was placed on global debt markets, international financial capital played a new part in prison development.

The importance of search partnerships has grown as a mode to search for innovations. However, in spite of this development, notions of open innovation combined with new propositions to change the search process in favour of sustainability have unravelled a need to take stock of the existing literature of search partnerships and the aims that these partnerships follow. This review addresses this shortcoming and synthesises the literature on search partnerships to analyse the current state of knowledge to deliver future research opportunities. A systematic review process was adopted by means of a set a set of pre-defined stages. These stages included the formulation and positioning of the review question within the larger literature domains, a systematic research process which included the adoption of search strings, relevance and quality appraisal criteria, as well as a stock-taking process of descriptive and thematic features, which followed the logic of prescriptive synthesis. This process led to a representative sample of 73 articles which were analysed subsequently. The tentative findings reveal that the literature is underpinned by a combination of theories linking to evolutionary or transaction-based understandings of search partnerships. Also, six conditions were found to drive search partnerships and when they are likely to form. Moreover five interventions were identified that relate to the use of search methods, boundary spanning activities, and the number, type and involvement levels with the partner. Finally search partnerships have been found to yield five outcomes: partnerships, and various types of innovations, higher social goals, as well as market knowledge. By combining contexts, interventions, and outcomes, research opportunities are identified that should inform future reviews, including the need for more research in sustainability-led search partnership contexts and a better understanding of search strategy configurations in relation interventions used and anticipated search partnership outcomes obtained.

In a time when interdependence in business becomes more prevalent and necessary to maintain and sustain competitive advantage, understanding the mechanisms by which businesses relate and collaboratively adapt become central to collaborative growth and mutual success. Learning becomes central to the adaptive process. Interorganizational learning is an often challenging result of collaborative efforts. The more different the organizations are from one another, the more challenging the adaptive process and interorganizational learning. This writing addresses some of the complexities involved in collaborative learning of organizations with divergent goals through the lens of exploration exploitation phenomena. It further addresses how interorganizational learning happens between organizations that are private and public in nature. This writing is a case study that answers the question of how organizations working in collaboratives learn from each other to attain mutually beneficial results by examining two such entities in a government and private partnership. This study extends concepts of interorganizational learning as well as provides guidelines for business entities seeking to attain or sustain learning organizations. It also provides a framework from which government entities may work synergistically with private enterprise to provide competitive service to their respective demographic.

In an effort to evaluate the social needs of military families, this study will evaluate levels of community support, its influence on military families and how military communities work to provide support for those needs through partnerships. Previous and related studies have emphasized support areas which include suggestions for building strong communities for military families, building resilience, creating partnerships and providing military families with the social support they need to stay together and function positively. Data was collected from community leaders and stakeholders specifically in Elizabethtown, Kentucky (a Fort Knox community) through open-ended interviews to assess community support and services currently available, how leaders perceive current support systems, and identify key recommendations for cultivating partnerships to provide community support for military families stationed at Fort Knox, Kentucky.