Trust Is Won Not Given: The Influence of Trust on Public- Public Partnerships

The issues that public organisations have to deal with are often overlapping with the scope of other public organisations; thus, by working together, they have a chance to create higher social returns. This could happen if they work together through a public-public partnership (P2P) where they decide to share the risks and resources and have the same core objective, namely to create public value. In urban redevelopment projects there is great potential for P2Ps, because there are often multiple public organizations involved. Hence, the different public organisations can act as a principal on a shared project where they share risks and resources. This thesis examines two cases studies with potential for public-public collaboration, and analyses what the effect of trust is on the collaboration over time. It examines whether higher levels of trust lead to higher collaborative relationships, and whether this has a positive effect of the project performance. The examined case studies are part of the Masterplan of the stationsgebied Utrecht Centraal, the two cases studies being OV-Terminal Utrecht Centraal and the Uithoflijn. In the case of the OV -Terminal Utrecht it was found that the trust had a positive effect on the partnership over time. The partnership reached higher collaboration levels due to the development of trust over time. Both trust as collaboration impacted the project performance overtime in a positive manner. The project was more time and budget efficient due to the higher trust levels in the partnership. On the other hand, the Uithoflijn was the less successful partnership it was evident that trust did not develop over time due to the situational factors, behaviour of the partners and, the initial meeting. The lower levels of trust affected the collaboration between the project partners, which had an adversarial outlook. The low levels of trust and collaboration effected the project performance in a negative manner, since the project went over time and budget due to the nonexistence of collaboration between the project partners.