Work in Progress

Navigating Complexity and Novelty: A Stakeholder Governance Framework for Public-Private Partnership Projects
by África Ariño, Pascual Berrone, Joan Enric Ricart, Xavier Sobrepere & Alexis Yong
* R&R at Academy of Management Review (AMR). EURAM  Annual Conference 2024 Best Paper [Link]

Public-private partnership (PPP) projects play a pivotal role in tackling intricate societal challenges by leveraging synergies among diverse stakeholders. Despite their increasing prevalence, a theoretical exploration of the governance mechanisms required to manage such partnerships is lacking. This paper develops a stakeholder governance framework for PPPs, proposing that project complexity and novelty determine the effectiveness of governance mechanisms. We suggest specific governance mechanisms that are the most efficient in projects with either low complexity or low novelty. We then shift our focus to purpose-driven projects (high-complexity, high-novelty projects aimed at addressing grand challenges) to explore the distinct governance mechanisms necessary for ensuring effective value creation and distribution in these projects. Specifically, we present a set of propositions that outline how the different lifecycle stages in these PPPs, each representing unique challenges amid evolving stakeholder dynamics, require diverse combinations of formal and informal contractual and relational governance mechanisms. Our framework theorizes and illustrates these interrelations, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of stakeholder governance in PPPs. Our research has implications for academics, practitioners, and policymakers involved in the design, implementation, and management of partnerships tackling societal grand challenges.

Ready or Not: How Readiness Shapes Government Responses to Mandatory and Voluntary Regulations
by Alexis Yong, Horacio E. Rousseau, Inés Alegre, Pascual Berrone & Joan Enric Ricart
* Submitted to a Special Issue at Journal of Management Studies (JMS). Presented at AOM Annual Conference 2023 [Link]

This study explores how government organizations respond to transnational regulation promoting transparency and environmental responsibility in public procurement. We draw on institutional theory to disentangle contradictory predictions on how government entities’ level of readiness (defined as their ability and willingness) shapes their response to mandatory and voluntary regulations. Based on EU Directive 2014/24, our results show that regulation impacts compliance asymmetrically contingent on readiness, suggesting complex interactions with synergistic or substitute effects. We thus reveal nuances in the effectiveness of regulatory pressures, resulting from the interaction between their nature (mandatory or voluntary) and the readiness level of adopting organizations. Our findings also offer insights for policymakers on using public procurement to fight corruption and meet sustainability goals, considering the regional contingencies that influence regulatory success.

A Configurational Approach to Grand Challenges: The Dual Role of Entrepreneurial Governments in Promoting Regional Sustainability Local Public Goods, Urban Growth, and Sustainability: A fsQCA Exploration
by Horacio E. Rousseau, Alexis Yong, & Pascual Berrone
* Submitted to a Special Issue at Strategic Management Journal (SMJ)

Does voluntary environmental regulation have a larger impact on organizations with high willingness and ability to address climate change or on those lacking such features? To examine this theoretical puzzle, we focus on how European Union Directive 2014/24, which promoted the incorporation of environment and climate-related criteria for awarding procurement contracts, shaped the adoption of green public procurement (GPP) across Europe’s regional governments. Benefiting from the simultaneous enactment across all member states on April 18, 2016, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to estimate the impact of this voluntary regulation across regional contracting entities with high and low levels of readiness – the willingness and ability to incorporate green and climate-related issues into their decision making. Using various economic, social, and environmental variables as indicators of readiness, we find robust and consistent evidence that regional governments with higher readiness are more likely to adopt GPP in their contracting activities. However, after the enactment of Directive 2014/24, government entities with low readiness levels showed a more significant increase in GPP adoption. These findings suggest that voluntary regulation may not accelerate sustainability across all regional governments but instead represent a minimal device to compensate for defects of readiness in organizations that external and internal constraints prevent from acting sustainably. We discuss the implications of these findings to extend research on voluntary environmental regulation to government organizations and inform practice on designing climate-related initiatives for greater impact.

Manuscripts in Preparation

Competing for Public Contracts: The Role of Patent Text Readability in Winning R&D Contracts
by Alexis Yong
*Target Journal: Strategic Management Journal (SMJ)

This study examines whether patent text readability improves firms’ competitiveness in the market of government procurement contracts, especially in R&D. Revealing information is not a common habit among firms. Most firms rely on secrecy to keep their competitive advantage safe and their inventions protected from competitors’ replication. However, firms operating in markets characterized by high contracting hazards might be willing to disclose sensitive information to mitigate information asymmetry, increase the expected value of the R&D outcome, and then further receive the awarded contracts. However, contrary to theoretical expectations, I find that average firms which write less readable patent texts and include fewer in-text scientific citations receive more allocation of R&D procurement contracts. These results open the discussion to non-market strategies and disclosure of innovation. Firms might be writing less readable, vaguer patent texts to increase their access to a wider range of public funds for innovation.

Trade-offs in Urban Policy: Economic Performance versus Environmental and Social Costs
by Alexis Yong
*Target Journal: Organization & Environment (O&E)

The paper analyzes the overlapping roles between economic factors of production such as basic infrastructure, workforce, urban planning, and technology, on the sustainability pillars in an urban setting. In particular, the study explores the intricate relationship between the endogenous forces driving urban growth and the economic, environmental, and social outcomes for a global sample of cities. I find that cities around the world combine these factors in very different ways to achieve sustainable performance, with no one unique combination of factors explaining urban performance across the world. The QCA method used in this study allows me to identify two main trade-offs urban policymakers encounter when dealing with urban growth policies. First, the attraction of talented people to cities relates to low levels of environmental quality, as air pollution increases with larger populations. Second, high levels of urban economic performance are related to high-income inequality levels, as people from lower economic backgrounds migrate to more dynamic cities in search of a better future.

Other Publications

• UNECE. 2024. Guidelines on Green and Sustainable Procurement of Public-Private Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals. Geneva: Working Party on Public-Private Partnerships (8th Session) [Link]

• UNIDO. 2022. Digital Kaizen: Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen and New Technologies to Increase Business Productivity (2nd Ed.). Vienna: UNIDO’s Digital Transformation and AI Strategies Division [Link]

• Marchesini, G. & Yong, A. 2021. Boards of Directors and Corporate Strategy in an Uncertain Context. IESE-ECGI Corporate Governance Conference Report October 4-5, 2021 [Link]