Abstract
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model is an important measure for transferring government functions and promoting socialist market economy in China. After four years of high-speed development and standardized development in recent years, PPP model has achieved good effect in our country. However, multiple problems emerged. In China, the “public” party of the model has always been dominated by state-owned enterprises. Although private enterprises have the willingness to participate, the actual participation degree and volume are not high which is not good for the sustainable development of the PPP model. This paper applied grounded theory to carry out in-depth interviews with the representatives from government, private enterprise, and SPV company in some key PPP projects with private participation, propose four coral categories to construct the whole process of private enterprises’ participation and summarize the behavioral features, and explore private enterprises’ realization of their participation willingness into actual participation behavior and the generation of their continuous participation willingness so as to clear the private enterprises’ participation path in PPP projects.
Keywords
Introduction
The rapid economic development in China in recent years has made remarkable achievements in infrastructure construction and public service [1]. Infrastructure construction is always a big concern for every government around the world, and people commonly believe it attaches greatly to the economic development [2] and it has undoubtable positive externality towards economic development [3], which is represented in two ways: firstly, it directly stimulates the local economy as the carrier of the investment promotion sponsored by local government; secondly, it promotes economic growth through its scale and network effects, that is, to increase output efficiency and expand the economic growth of developed regions to the economic retarded regions. Public service is more connected to people’s daily life. Huge amount of fund is needed for both infrastructure construction development and better public service. For a long time, infrastructure construction and public service are solely guided and offered by government through single investment source of government debt and land grant. However, with increasing financial pressure, the financial allocation by local government is far from enough to meet the huge funding needs for infrastructure construction and public service. Under this circumstance, the PPP model that advocates the cooperation of governmental and social capital to jointly provide infrastructure and public service has gradually attracted people’s attention. Since 2014, this model has been actively promoted and applied in China and played an important role in solving the shortage of fund and reducing the risk of local government debt.
PPP project usually has long payback period, high risk, and relatively low return rate. Though it has successfully completed financing for many projects and solved the emergencies for local governments, many problems still exist. After the issuance of Announcement No. 92 [2017] by Ministry of Finance (Notice of the Ministry of Finance on Regulating the Administration of Project Database on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Comprehensive Information Platform), many local governments called off a variety of PPP projects and started a “clear-stock” champion. Since then, PPP model has stepped into the standardized development period. In spite of the cold environment for PPP model in China, Chinese national ministries and commissions have numerously issued policy documents to encourage private enterprises to participate in PPP projects, such as Document No. 79 [2017] of the General Office of the State Council, which clearly states that private capital should be encouraged to participate in PPP projects, investment opportunities of private enterprises should be enriched, and discrimination against private capital must be prohibited. After that, National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance also issued guides for this document to steer private enterprises in terms of industry environment, policy environment and financing environment. Whereas, the participation degree of private enterprises hasn’t reached the expectation. Let’s take the data on National PPP Comprehensive Information Platform in the third quarter of 2019 as the example. At the end of the third quarter, there were totally 5990 projects with complete social capital ownership information in the administrative database, concerning 10713 social capital units of which private enterprises account for 34.6%; There were 2607 private investment backgrounded projects with an investment of 3.0 trillion RMB, accounting for 43.5% and 32.6% of landing projects with complete social capital ownership information. Typical Chinese features can be found in the actual operation of Chinese PPP projects: the type of social capital is still mainly from state-owned enterprises at present. Although the government strongly supports the participation of private enterprises in PPP projects and advocates “let professional people do professional things”, private enterprises who should be an important part of the social capital have always remained their low participation and small share. Most private enterprises are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. How to increase the transformation of private enterprises’ participation willingness into actual act so as to increase the participation degree is the only way to find the participation path of private enterprises in PPP projects.
In the current studies on private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects, researchers generally start with the influencing factors restricting the participation of private enterprises so as to discover the reasons for their low participation. The foremost reason is lacking participation willingness [8]. Since PPP projects have long payback periods, it is risky to invest in projects of large volume [9]. After weighing the benefit and risk, many potential private enterprises tend to withdraw, not to mention those with insufficient financial strength. Secondly, private enterprises’ competitors, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises, have natural advantages of strong financial strength, advanced technology, low expectations for profits, and closer relationships with the government due to their background which are not available to private enterprises [10]. The third, seen from the perspective of the government cooperating with the social capital, the government and social capital are affected by the vertical social network. The two parties are initially in an “opposing” state, and trust and cooperation are difficult to achieve [11]. The unreasonable risk-sharing caused by the unequal status of the two, the dishonesty of local government, the threshold set during the bidding process because of the discriminatory prejudice against private enterprises, and the local government’s consideration of its own risk [12] all have made it difficult for private enterprises to take part in. The last, private enterprises will encounter more difficulties than state-owned enterprises in the industry environment. Ambiguous laws and regulations and financing difficulties [13]are important factors as well that restrict private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects.
Therefore, this paper tends to study private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects in the view of private enterprises to explore the participation timing and features, to construct the whole process of private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects based on grounded theory through in-depth interviews with the representatives from government, private enterprise, and SPV company in some key PPP projects with private participation, and to clear the private enterprises’ participation path in PPP projects.
Research design
Research methodology
Since there is no theoretical hypothesis for the research on the participation path of private enterprises in PPP projects, this paper adopts qualitative research approach and grounded theory to study the participation behavior of private enterprises in PPP projects and explores the process and features of this behavior. Grounded theory is a research method proposed by Glaser and Strauss [14] who construct this theory based on a large amount of text and other materials [15].
Research subject
Most of the interviewees mentioned in this paper are the staff from governmental departments, private enterprises and SPV companies who have been occupied in PPP projects for a long time. There are two ways to select interviewees: one is the staff of provincial governmental departments and his recommended workers from governments, private enterprises and SPV companies which are involved in successful projects with private participation; the other is the representatives selected by the author of this paper in project database, including those from private enterprises that have participated in numerous PPP projects and the related parties in these projects. These interviewees have rich experience and deeper understanding of the relevant problems in the PPP projects with private participation, and the interview records would present the whole participation process of private enterprises in PPP projects more completely and reflect the participation behavior and generation of continuous participation willingness of private enterprises. The age coverage of 14 interviewees is from 20 to 50, during which people are more active to express their opinions. These interviewees are recorded as a01 to a14 and their information are listed in Table 1.
Information of Interviewees
Information of Interviewees
Interview design and implementation
Semi-structured interview is applied, and the interview outline (Table 2) is set in three parts. The first part is informative section, which is mainly used for collecting interviewees’ information so as to have a primary understanding of interviewees’ personal professional background and previous experience; The second is objective section, which attempts to get a preliminary understanding of the current situation of private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects, their participation motives, and main factors that affect the transformation of their willingness into actual participation behavior from objectively existing phenomena; The third is subjective section, which aims to flexibly adjust the interview outline in accordance with the subjective expressions of the interviewees, and conduct in-depth exchanges with the interviewees on the objective current situation in order to dig more content.
Examples of Interview Outline for Group Discussion
Examples of Interview Outline for Group Discussion
The interviews were conducted in the form of a combination of personal in-depth interviews and group interviews, which applied face-to-face exchange with each interview lasting 1 to 2 hours. At first, a personal in-depth interview was conducted with each interviewee to know their attitude and personal opinion on private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects as deep as possible; then 5 group interviews were set according to projects for free discussion with a host leading the members to follow the interview outline. During the interview, the author of this paper kept records, adjusted questions according to the expressions of the interviewees, and put forward further questions for the new questions mentioned in the interviews, so as to dig deep of the content. After the interviews, the author would check the interview records with each interviewee to ensure the validity and effectiveness of the interviews. Besides, the author would make the second-round interview with some of the interviewees on some questions or data through online forms such as WeChat or phone call after the face-to-face interviews. The records of the second-round interviews and materials and data donated by some interviewees have also been included in this study.
After the interviews, the members in the same project group with the authororganized all the interview materials into document format as a final interview record of nearly 130 thousand words. This original data was further processed and encoded through the software of NVivo12.
(1) Level-1 codes
The original data was used as the encoding material, which would be further conceptualized and categorized through encoding word for word and sentence for sentence. For example, interviewee a08 said “The bidding documents clearly stated that the bidding company must have BOT or TOT experience, so the winning company must have the experience before.” Through the conceptualization process, the concept of “previous experience” was got and the category of “enterprise’s competence” was got as well, so that the level-1 encoding completed. Finally, 33 level-1 codes were concluded and formed the level-1 code system in this paper. See to Table 3 (only 2 original sentences and some original concepts and categories are explained because of the limited length).
Examples of Level-1 Codes
Examples of Level-1 Codes
(2) Level-2 codes
Level-2 code is a new system that is formed through the categorization of relations, including cause-effect, context, inclusion and so on, among different categories based on open coding [16]. As shown in Table 5, numerous interviewees believed that the social value would be realized on a certain degree through improving the reputation of the corporate or the entrepreneur, which was therefore added to level-2 code “realization of social value”. 13 level-2 codes were concluded in the similar way.
Examples of Level-2 Codes
Level-3 Codes
(3) Level-3 codes
A systematic analysis was carried out for all the conceptualizations shown in the interview materials of the PPP projects with private participation to abstract and condense into a highly generalized “coral categories”. Therefore 4 level-3 codes were extracted from 13 level-2 codes, which are: participation motives, perception, participation behavior gains, and continuous participation willingness.
Path model for participation behavior of private enterprises
This paper applied grounded theory to make 3 levels of encoding for the interview records and written materials of the staff who have dealt in PPP projects with private participation for a long time, and finally restored the participation path of private capital in PPP projects (see Fig. 1). Private enterprises started their participation after the impact of initial participation motives, and generated actual participation behavior when their participation willingness reached a critical point after autonomous perception; benefits came with the participation behavior and also stimulated the generation of continuous participation willingness, which continued to function on perception to promote the enterprises to take part in other PPP projects as a motive.

Participation Path of Private Capital in PPP Projects.
The initial participation motives for private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects include participation atmosphere of the enterprise, developing demand of the enterprise, realization of social value, and industries suitable for private participation. Participation atmosphere of the enterprise refers to the favorable impression for the PPP project generated through initial preference public opinion, suggestions from experts and scholars, and reference to domestic and foreign successful experience. For example, the frequently released documents of national ministries and commissions that strongly support the development of private enterprises and their participation in PPP projects; experts and scholars universally believe that the participation of private enterprises is more conducive to the sustainable development of the PPP model. Developing demand of the enterprise refers to the demand of the private enterprises for better development in multiple aspects such as making profits. The interview materials showed that most private enterprises, like other social capital, would give more consideration to the future profitability of the project when participating in a PPP project. Some enterprises would choose PPP projects because they need more projects to expand their development; some would pay attention to the project because of their curiosity for PPP model; some other would consider more on the relationship with the local government when they participate in PPP project in a new administrative district and lower their profit-making expectation at the same time, just like interviewee a04 said his company chose low return rate in order to expand the local market since that’s the first project of his company in the new city. Social value includes enterprise reputation and entrepreneur reputation. Although the profit of PPP projects is relatively low, it often influences infrastructure and people’s daily life. Therefore, the successful participation in PPP projects has certain public goods attribute which can improve social value of the enterprise, as well as the enterprise reputation.
Perception
Perception can be divided into perception of the enterprise’s attitude, participation environment perception, and perception of the enterprise’s competence. Perception of the enterprise’s attitude refers to the subjective attitude of the private enterprise towards participation in PPP projects under various influencing factors. Facing specific project, the enterprise would make subjective judgment on the project risk. The so-called “two reports and one plan” (i.e. Project implementation plan, value-for-money evaluation report and financial affordability demonstration report) is the preliminary assessment of the project risk, for project benefit and risk are important factors to decide the attitude of the enterprise. The participation situation of other enterprises may also influence the subjective attitude of the enterprise. According to the interview records, the author divides the influence of participation situation of other enterprises into three categories: the first is fair competitive attitude. Private enterprises, together with other social capitals, bid normally and are selected fairly by the project bidder. This situation currently accounts for the majority. From the results of interviews with most governmental representatives, the government generally believes that there is no discrimination against the entry of private enterprises; the second is negative attitude. When bidding with state-owned enterprises, some private enterprises are affected by the old ideas of “privileged state-owned enterprise and underprivileged private companies” or “the government favored state-owned enterprises”, and with some natural advantages of state-owned enterprises in some aspects including financing, these private enterprises may hold a negative attitude; and the last is active attitude.Some private enterprises would follow others in the same industry as taking the business development of the competitive private enterprises into consideration as their own. The personal attitude of the entrepreneur is also non-neglectable both in participation willingness and participation attitude of the private enterprise. As the decision-maker, the entrepreneur often controls the developing direction of the company. Therefore, if the entrepreneur personally holds an active attitude towards and is willing to participate in PPP project, then the enterprise would take the same attitude.
Participation environment perception refers to the comprehensive judgment of the private enterprises on whether they currently have a suitable external environment for participation in PPP projects, including local economic developing potential, influence of the 3rd party, financing environment, laws, regulations and policies, local government and developing prospect of the industry. The local economic developing potential is composed of current economic development and future economic developing potential. In the interview, we learned that the local current economic development has small influence on private participation, while whether it is suitable to participate and future developing potential have stronger influence on the perception of participation environment. Let’s take the situation in West China as an example: the economic retarded “eat meal” financial areas generally consider to achieve the purpose of infrastructure construction through investment promotion. Smaller competition pressure with large-scaled state-owned enterprises and lower requirements on capital investment’s scale and amount make these areas much easier for private enterprises to invest; Furthermore, there are also some large private enterprises focusing on the future developing potential in the local area innovatively propose a developing PPP model which uses the new industry city model to realize revenue through future development and value-adding. The influence of the 3rd party comes from the 3rd party organizations and platforms that participate in PPP projects, such as consultant companies and data-analysis organizations in PPP industry. The 3rd party is needed for project bidding, tendering, and formulation of cooperation agreement. The vigorous development of the 3rd party will help to construct a good environment for private enterprises’ participation. Because of relatively poor financial power, private enterprises are often faced with difficult and costly financing. We found in the interview that some financial organizations required a company with “Zhong” prefix to guarantee the financing, which made it harder for private enterprises to participate in PPP projects. Laws, regulations and policies include the relevant laws and regulations suitable for the participation of private enterprises in PPP projects, for example, although the multiple policies issued by national ministries and commissions that have ensured the private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects, there is no applicable laws and regulations to regulate the behaviors of interest-related parties. Local government involves its attitude towards private enterprises’ participation in PPP project and its execution ability. PPP projects need governmental coordination on a larger sphere because of its complex connection with multiple units and complicated approval process. Developing prospect of the industry means the future development of the industry to which the project is belonged.
Perception of the enterprise’s competence refers to the enterprise’s prejudgment for its risk-control ability in the project and the self-evaluation of its strength when facing with the project. Control ability of the project is the prejudgment for future possible risk-control ability and the prejudgment for its own investment and operation abilities when the enterprise wins the project. For instance, interviewee a06 stated that since his company has its own construction team so that it can control the risks in construction period, construction quality and cost, and the company cared little about the profit and loss of the project because it can make up for the loss from other industries.
Participation behavior gains
Participation behavior gains refer to the visible and invisible profit or loss after the enterprise carried out participation behavior in PPP project, including economic benefits, social benefits, invisible strength and experience feeling. The completion of a project will display the profit and loss on economic benefits. A successful project must have good profitability and a part of invisible benefits coming from the improvement of the brand value. Because of the public goods attribute of the PPP project, the implementation of the project always brings about some social benefits, which would influence the promotion of local economic development, optimization of ecological environment, and convenience in residents’ life. Invisible strength refers to the accumulation of successful or failing experience in project operations obtained through participation in the project and the rise or decline in industry status that may accompany. For instance, a successful implementation of wastewater treatment project would bring objective economic profit. With the advancing wastewater treatment ability in the city, the enterprise would make great contribution to the local water ecology; with the accumulation of participation experience in PPP projects, this private enterprise would take this as a footstone to open markets in other places and also become a model with certain influence in the industry. Experience feeling is the subjective experience during the participation process, including whether the participation process is complicated and whether the exit mechanism is sound. For private enterprises, a simple participation process without possible follow-up worries would be a reflection of a good experience.
Continuous participation willingness
Continuous participation willingness includes two aspects of acquisition cognition and cognition for developing environment. Acquisition cognition is the private enterprise’s cognition of participation behavior after the actual participation in the project. In the interview, we learned that some private enterprises have taken part in PPP projects for many times and they generally have good acquisition cognitions which are mostly positive.
Cognition for developing environment is the private enterprise’s cognition towards the present developing environment. Similar to the perceptions mentioned in (2), it is a process of reperceiving new project. Although private enterprise often considers to take part in new PPP project based on its previous participation experience, however, it still needs to remeasure through perception to decide whether to take the participation behavior. One person in charge of an enterprise who had participated in many PPP projects said in the interview: “We did good in last project, so we are very interested in this similar project. Because we have experience, however, we still need to carry out ‘two reports and one plan’ and decide whether to take part in the bidding according to our competence”.
Analysis on participation behavior of private enterprises in PPP projects
Analysis on participation path of private enterprises
Through the analysis on interview materials of different participation parties and interviewees, it’s natural to conclude in the view of private enterprises that their participation in PPP projects is fundamentally the generation of participation behavior. When a private enterprise obtains information on the development of the PPP industry or related project information in some way, the decision-makers or the decision-making departments of the enterprise will be attracted just like by other ordinary projects.Private enterprise that has never participated in a PPP project will form initial participation motives based on the curiosity of strange things, the strategic needs of different development stages of the enterprise, the realization of the corporate’s social values, and the maturity of the industry. After the generation of initial participation motives, the participation willingness of the private enterprise will change through perception and transform into actual participation behavior based on the comprehensive consideration of the internal and external conditions of the private enterprise at the critical point. The generation of participation behavior means that the private enterprise has completed one participation. Participation behavior will lead to acquisition cognition. After private enterprise’ participation behavior, there are three kinds of situations: the first is the establishment of cooperation relationship between the private enterprise and the government and the successful completion of the project; the second is the establishment of cooperation relationship between the private enterprise and the government, but failed in the project; the last is the private enterprise and the government do not form cooperative relationship. Three different situations will lead to different acquisition cognition, and further influence the generation of continuous participation willingness.
Generation of participation behavior through the influence of perception on participation willingness
Perception is the key to the process of private enterprise’s participation in the PPP project. After the generation of participation motives and before the establishment of cooperation relationship with the government, the private enterprise would always have a “doubtful” attitude towards taking the actual participation behavior and stay in a “doubtful” state. At this moment, the private enterprise always considers whether all the internal and external factors can satisfy the conditions of generating the participation behavior, which is the perception mentioned above. The private enterprise should firstly determine whether it has a positive attitude towards its participation in the PPP project, and then need to evaluate both the enterprise itself and the external environment at the same time. If the private enterprise has enough competence to participate in the project, its participation willingness will change all the time until the willingness transforms into participation behavior at the critical point when the private enterprise perceives favorable external environmental conditions such as the macro policies that strongly support the development of private enterprises, easier financing from financial institutions, strong execution of the local government, and no threshold for private enterprises to participate in PPP projects.
Continuous participation willingness’ influence on the generation of a second participation
After the first participation, the private enterprise with participation experience will form the participation behavior gains. If the gains are positive, the private enterprise can acquire good social benefits, economic benefits, increase of invisible strength and good experience feeling after the first participation in the PPP project. This kind of positive participation behavior gains would stimulate the generation of continuous participation willingness of the private enterprise through a good acquisition cognition and a good developing environment. Continuous participation willingness is influenced by initial participation motives at the same time, and functions together with it in the process of perception. The perception of the enterprise’s attitude, participation environment, and the enterprise’s competence equip the private enterprise with stronger risk-control ability and more powerful competence of its own brought by a more active participation attitude, better participation environment and richer participation experience, so as to stimulate the reoccurrence of the participation behavior to complete the second participation.
Explanation of participation behavior of private enterprises from the perspective of planned behavior theory
During the analysis of private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects, the author found out that the features and principles in the participation of private enterprises in PPP projects are consistent with the relevant content of planned behavior theory. Planned behavior theory is an important theory proposed by Ajzen[17] used to explain and predict the individual behaviors, and is widely applied in various fields such as Management and Psychology. The main points of planned behavior theory are: (1) Individual behavior is affected by individual willingness [18–22]; (2) Behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and intuitive behavioral controls determine individual behavioral willingness [23]. Corresponding to the study of private enterprises’ participation behavior, the generation of private enterprises’ participation behavior is also influenced by the enterprises’ participation willingness. The perception of the enterprise’s attitude, participation environment, and the enterprise’s competence in the perception process seem to be explained by behavioral attitudes, subjective norms, and intuitive behavioral controls, respectively. The perception process influences the participation behavior by affecting the participation willingness, which is in accordance with the ideas of planned behavior theory [24].
Summary and prospect
This paper studied participation path of private enterprises in PPP projects with grounded theory, proposed four coral categories of “participation motives”, “perception”, “participation behavior gains”, and “continuous participation willingness”, constructed the whole participation process of private enterprises, summarized the features of the participation behavior, and concluded the essence of private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects is the generation of participation behavior. Based on different considerations of the curiosity of strange things, the strategic needs of different development stages of the enterprise, the realization of the corporate’s social values, and the maturity of the industry, private enterprises would form the initial participation motives, which would trigger the change of the participation willingness into participation behavior through comprehensive consideration of the internal and external conditions of the private enterprises in the perception process. Participation behavior would lead to participation behavior gains, which tempts the emergence of continuous participation willingness of private enterprises through good acquisition cognition and developing environment. At the same time, continuous participation willingness is influenced by initial participation motives and functions together with it in the process of perception. A second participation would take place through the improvement of the perception of the enterprise’s attitude, participation environment, and the enterprise’s competence.
In constructing the participation process of private enterprise in PPP projects, the author noticed that the key of the process lies in perception. Three categories in the perception process could stimulate the emergence of participation behavior through influencing participation willingness. In order to clear the participation path of private enterprises in PPP projects, three aspects that directly influence perception and the continuous willingness which also has influence on perception should be discussed. Therefore, the author put forward the following suggestions:
(1) To improve the subjective initiative of private enterprises
Improving the subjective initiative of private enterprises should start from the public opinion environment and the project itself. On one hand, experts and scholars should make in-depth research on private enterprises and the PPP model-related problems, absorb domestic and foreign advancing experience and publish timely through relevant media so as to improve the private enterprises’ understanding towards the PPP model. On the other hand, government and media should create a positive public opinion orientation and actively promote the government’s relevant policies on supporting private enterprises to participate in PPP projects. Regular Project forums and Project Promotion conferences aiming to information exchange for private enterprises’ participation in PPP projects should be organized in the industry with participants including entrepreneurs from private enterprises, experts and scholars, and representatives of other parties who have a sense of social responsibility, pay attention to the development of the PPP model, and have a certain initial participation willingness. Besides, government also needs to come up with high-quality, suitable projects for private enterprises.
(2) To enhance the strength of private enterprises
The combining effort of government and enterprises is needed for enhancing the strength of private enterprises. On one hand, the government should continue to issue relevant policies and regulations to support and encourage the development of private enterprises and provide convenient conditions for private enterprises in the aspects such as financing and taxation. On the other hand, private enterprises should focus on the improvement of its economic strength and technological power, as well as strive to enhance its risk response capacity. In some specific industries, the technological power of private enterprises is easier to be displayed in PPP projects, so private enterprises can consider using technological power to make up for the deficiency of economic strength. In the face of large-scaled projects, joint bidding can be adopted to meet the project’s requirements for fund and qualification. Small-scaled private enterprises could consider to participate in PPP projects with less competition pressure in economic less-developed areas. These projects are usually in small scale with relatively lower requirement for the economic strength. At the same time, since state-owned enterprises generally prefer to participate in large-scaled projects, there is less competition of this kind of projects.
(3) To clear the participation channels for private enterprises
Clearing the participation channels for private enterprises means to construct a good participation environment. The first thing is to build a good policy environment. The government should release laws and regulations suitable to PPP projects as soon as possible to regulate the irregularities and protect the rightful benefits of all parties. Maintaining good relationship among all parties is also very important. The local government should avoid dishonesty to eliminate the participation barriers for private enterprises and treat private enterprises fairly. Constructing a perfect mechanism environment means to establish a healthy risk-sharing mechanism to promote the reasonable sharing of risk in participation parties and lower the participation risk of private enterprises. A harmonious financing environment is to decrease the financing threshold for private enterprises so as to liberate the enterprises from the difficult costly financing predicament through the efforts of government and financing institutions. A benign competitive environment is created through government’s calls, the company’s own moral constraints, industry guidance, and related regulations. A more transparent and perfect industry can be constructed through regulating the 3rd party market and establishing and perfecting project database.
(4) To strengthen the participation behavior gains of private enterprises
The government should improve private enterprises’ participation behavior gains on two aspects of participation process and exit mechanism, so as to promote the generation of continuous participation willingness. Firstly, the government should optimize the participation process and improve the execution of governmental departments to make it more convenient for the participation of private enterprises. Meanwhile, it is also important to improve judicial appeal procedures and establish a sound exit mechanism in order to solve the worries of private enterprises: on one hand, the victim in the breach of contract could safeguard his legal rights rapidly with low cost, on the other hand, the follow-up disposition of failed project must be emphasized.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by The Fund Project: Humanities and social sciences projects funded by the Ministry of Education (16XJA790002)
