A review of public-private partnership (PPP) studies in World Bank Designated Developing Countries

Despite the infrastructure development disparity between developed and developing nations, the reasons for the adoption of PPP procurement strategies by governments in these nations are the same. While PPP research has gained traction among researchers and academics across the globe, lots of the review-based studies on PPP have been either domain, source/journal or country-specific. Reviews of PPP research in developing countries are scarce. This study focused on World Bank designated developing countries to carry out a bibliometric analysis and content evaluation of 490 PPP studies extracted from the Scopus database in the built environment. The analyses showed that "The Journal of Construction Engineering and Management" is one of the prominent outlets for PPP publications in developing countries. The People's Republic of China is the most productive country in PPP research. Chan A.P.C., Zhang X., and Cheung E. were the leading authors, and the Survey research method (questionnaire and interview) was the most common. 'PPP promotion and performance studies' is the leading focus area for researchers, and "water and sewage" and "transportation" were the leading sectors of focus of the reviewed studies. There was a scarcity of studies on emerging industry 4.0 technologies promotion and adoption in long-term infrastructure PPP projects and this formed the basis for future research. This study will guide future researchers on the outlets to publish their works. It will also guide the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank and other corporate bodies on the sectors of the economy for investment and partnership purposes.