The discursive legitimation of profit in public-private service delivery

Peeter Peda and Eija Vinnari

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, 2020, vol. 69, issue C

Abstract: Public-private partnerships are a topic of continuing interest for accounting researchers. However, as yet there are only a few studies focusing on the post-implementation phase of PPPs. In particular, even though scholars have criticized PPPs for inflating the profits of private partners at the expense of the public sector and citizens, they have rarely scrutinized the public debates whereby the legitimacy of PPP organizations’ profits are societally contested and debated. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the processes of profit (de)legitimation by examining the construction of senses of (il)legitimacy in public-private service delivery. These processes are examined in the case of Tallinn Water, an Estonian public-private water company. Our findings suggest that the main themes debated revolved around the following questions: What is a normal profit for a public-private monopoly? Who or what is the ultimate authority in such matters? What is morally appropriate behaviour for such a company? Our findings also indicate that even relatively affordable prices and high performance levels do not suffice to create legitimacy for an organization that tries to make excessive gains from the provision of something that is generally regarded as a human right.

Keywords: Discourse; Legitimation; Profit; Public-private partnership; Water sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1045235418301308
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:crpeac:v:69:y:2020:i:c:s1045235418301308

DOI: 10.1016/j.cpa.2019.06.002

Access Statistics for this article

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING is currently edited by Marcia Annisette, Christine Cooper and Yves Gendron

More articles in CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().