Public–private partnership adoption in punctuated policy environments: a dynamic qualitative comparative analysis

As fiscal and regulatory constraints intensify, governments are reassessing public–private partnerships (PPPs), raising the question of how governments adjust their strategies across changing policy environments. Our study develops a dynamic fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis framework integrating organizational institutionalism and resource dependence theory to examine how configurations underlying PPP adoption evolve over time. Using panel data from 281 Chinese cities, we identify how configurations associated with PPP adoption are reconfigured across two policy environments. Under a supportive policy environment from 2015 to 2017, PPP adoption is associated primarily with legitimacy seeking and resource mobilization. Under a restrictive policy environment from 2018 to 2020, adoption persists through institutional inertia and pressures to sustain economic performance. Policy signals remain involved in several high-adoption configurations across policy environments. In contrast, resource conditions become less consistently involved under the restrictive policy environment: the social participant condition, leader career experience, and government fiscal resources shift from joint presence in the supportive policy environment to differentiated roles in the restrictive policy environment. By demonstrating how institutional pressures and resource conditions are reweighted following a critical juncture, our study refines institutional and resource-based explanations of PPP adoption and offers insights for governments responding to changing policy environments.