Public Private Partnerships in Urban Regeneration Projects: organizational form or managerial capacity

Abstract
Urban Regeneration Companies (URCs) are public private entities that have begun to appear in several European nations and are set up specifically to manage and implement Urban Regeneration projects. One of the core ideas behind the establishment of these partnerships is that in order to effectively tackle the challenging process of restructuring, these organizations should function at arm’s length from the political institutions that oversee them. However, the literature on governance suggests that organizational form may be less of a factor than management capability. Using survey data obtained from individuals who are heavily involved in Dutch Urban Regeneration Partnerships, this paper shows that the organizational features of URCs (functioning at arm’s length from the government, the tightness of the organizational form) are not important to their performance, while the use of multiple management strategies is relevant to their performance.