Critical Risk Factors of Transnational Public–Private Partnership Projects: Literature Review

Abstract

The importance of transnational public–private partnership (TPPP) has accelerated over the last decade, and the critical risk factors (CRFs) of TPPP have gained increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners. However, a systematic review of the extant literature on TPPP CRFs is unavailable. This study addresses this gap by conducting a systematic review of 37 selected papers on TPPP published in peer-reviewed journals from 1991 to 215. The papers are reviewed to study the trend in the annual publication on TPPP CRFs, contributions of various countries and researchers to TPPP CRF-related studies, the most frequently identified TPPP CRFs, and research methods adopted in TPPP CRF–related studies. The results of this study indicate an increasing trend in research publications on TPPP CRFs, and the most frequently identified TPPP CRFs are found to be legal risk, cooperation risk, tariff risk, financing risk, and political risk. The research methodologies adopted are case study, qualitative discussion, survey, and hybrid methods. This study provides a useful reference for researchers and practitioners to appreciate the research trend and development of TPPP CRFs and to enhance their understanding of the CRFs for TPPP projects for risk management activities. The developed checklist of TPPP CRFs also makes this paper useful for researchers to conduct further empirical studies.