H Chou

Characterizing the corporate governance of UK listed construction companies

In response to the emergence of scandals involving many high‐profile companies during the 1990s, corporate governance is considered as an area requiring immediate reform. The government of the United Kingdom has conducted a series of reviews on corporate governance and incorporated the recommendations of these reports into regulatory codes. Compliance with these codes can be considered to indicate the implementation of best corporate practice. A question of interest is how UK construction companies perform in corporate governance. The answer can be revealed by comparing construction companies with the top 50 companies listed in the UK, based on the provisions of corporate governance codes. Construction companies are found to (1) disclose less corporate governance information; (2) display lower levels of structural board independence in terms of separate roles of chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) and percentage of independent directors; (3) rely less on external consultant advice in assisting the decision making of three board committees. Research thus should be conducted on whether these disparities cause adverse effects on construction company performance.

Transaction-Cost Approach to the Comparative Analysis of User-Pay and Government-Pay Public-Private Partnership Systems

AbstractGovernment-pay and user-pay public-private partnership (P3) systems have been employed as the main conduits for channelling private capital to finance the provision of public services throughout the world. In efficiency terms, they are suited to different types of projects. This paper develops a model to illuminate the condition under which one route would perform better than the other. If both of them are instituted into law, governance alignment should emerge in the long run. However, in Taiwan government-pay P3 systems are not a lawful route, forcing the government to employ user-pay P3 systems regardless of project types. This gives researchers an unusual opportunity to examine what would happen as a result of an inappropriate choice of P3 models. This paper makes a theoretical innovation in the identification of a conflict of interest indicator as an attribute for differentiating the relative efficacy of two types of P3 systems. This result sheds light on the way value for money assessment sh...

Governance Misalignment and Its Consequences in PPP Procurement

Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and Private Finance Initiative (PFI) have been employed as the main conduits for channelling private capital to finance the provision of public services throughout the world. In efficiency terms, they are suited to different types of projects. Drawing on Williamson’s three-stage transaction cost framework, this research develops a model to illuminate the condition under which one route would perform better than the other. If both of them are instituted into law, governance alignment should emerge in the choice between them in the long run. However, in Taiwan, PFI is not a lawful route yet, forcing the government to stick with BOT regardless of project types. This gives researchers an unusual opportunity to examine what would happen in the event of governance misalignment. This research makes a theoretical innovation in the identification of “conflict of interest indicator” as an attribute for differentiating the relative efficacy of BOT and PFI. This result can shed light on the way private finance reform should be taken forward.