Exploring public-private partnership challenges and the effects on the construction workforce: a Scotland study

The construction industry, particularly the public sector, plays an important role in providing infrastructure, assets and services that improve the social and economic status of any country. The delivery of public construction projects in the UK and Scotland have since moved beyond the traditional form of exclusive project execution by the public sector to different forms of public-private partnerships. While this approach offers numerous benefits, the challenges remain. This research highlights the challenges of implementing public-private partnerships in public construction procurement in Scotland particularly as it affects human resource motivation and performance in Scottish public construction projects. The emphases on human resource motivation and performance is crucially expressed in this paper. This is stimulated by literature emphasising the significant human resource dependent nature of the construction industry. Adopting an exploratory and interpretivist approach, fifteen purposively sampled participants provided relevant experiences via semi-structured interviews, with transcripts thematically analysed. The themes presented in this paper cover leadership and goal uncertainty, occupational rigidity and public client penalty orientation. This paper also reiterates the influence of external political factors on the construction industry and the importance of decision-making driven by the construction management processes and parties.