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representative sample was drawn from both the subjects who were interviewed individually and new members who had not been interviewed. The focus group was used to probe further and moderate the answers from the sample. Mertens (2011), recommends the membership of an ideal focus group to range from six to twelve subjects. The data collection was conducted with a focus group of twelve subjects.
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process
9. Is the Public Private Partnership procurement process fully incorporating all these risks? Yes / No. Why is that?
10. What are the risk elements that in your view are NOT incorporated within Public Private Partnership procurement process?
11. Do Public Private Partnership Procurement process guidelines support government entities business objectives? Yes / No. Why is that?
12. What is the motivation for the private sector to be in a partnership?
13. Does the current Public Private Partnership Procurement process encourage business partnership with the private sector? Yes / No.
Please explain?
Perception by Stakeholders
and the
influence on Stakeholders
14. Is the Tourism Public Private Partnership Procurement Process the preferred partnership type by private sector investors? Yes / No. Please explain.
15. Is the Tourism Public Private Partnership Procurement Process the preferred partnership type by public sector entities? Yes / No. Please explain.
16. Is the Tourism Public Private Partnership Procurement Process the preferred partnership type by Financing Institutions? Yes / No. Please explain.
17. Does the current Public Private Partnership Procurement process plan safeguard the interest of key stakeholders i.e. government entity, private partner? Yes / No. Please explain.
18. Does the current Public Private Partnership Procurement process plan encourage participation? Yes / No. Please explain.
19. Does the current Public Private Partnership Procurement process plan ensure compliance to regulatory requirements? Yes / No. Please explain.
20. In your view, are organizational policies and strategies aligned to support the Public Private Partnership procurement process? Yes / No.
Please explain.
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21. Does the set Public Private Partnership Procurement process by Treasury have any influence on the stakeholders’ decision to terminate the project? Yes / No. Please explain
The Public Private
Partnership Procurement Process Performance
22. Has your organization’s Tourism Public Private Partnership project completed the Treasury Approval III step? Yes / No.
23. If yes, what was the reason for success or factors that contributed to success?
24. If delayed, what caused delays on the project?
25. If not completed, what is the reason and status in terms of the treasury approval plan?
26. In your view, is there any link between the success and failure of the project with the Tourism Public Private Partnership Procurement guidelines provided by Treasury? Yes / No. Please explain.
Recommendati ons for change
27. Do you think the guidelines assisted organizations in going through the process? Yes / No? Why do you think so?
28. Should the guidelines be changed? Yes / No? Why do you think so?
29. In your view, what additional knowledge/alternative ways of thinking would strengthen the Public Private Partnership process guidelines?
30. What challenges were faced by those organizations that went successfully with the process?
31. In your view, in what way should the Public Private Partnership procurement process change to suit your organizational needs?
Source: Author’s own construction
5. 6 Research target
The researcher will usually not study the entire population of interest, instead, will select a subset or sample of the population. However, the researcher can use the results obtained from the sample to make generalizations about the entire population. The sample should be so carefully chosen that, through it, the researcher is able to see characteristics of the total population in the same proportions and relationships that they would be seen if the
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researcher were to examine the entire population. The specific sampling procedure used depends on the purpose of sampling and a careful consideration of the parameters of the population. If the sampling procedure is not carefully planned, any conclusions the researcher draws from the data are likely to be distorted.
5.6.1 Sampling procedures
The object of study is to be referred to as the unit of analysis and the sum total of all these units is called the population. Hesse-Beber (2010) defines a population as any group that is the subject of the research and argues that it is not possible or practical to study the entire population and, in such situations, it is necessary to make general findings based on the study.
William (1988) further asserts that samples must be representative of the population being studied. The sample must be large enough to correctly represent a population. A sample is said to be biased if it represents only a specific subgroup of the population or if a particular subgroup is over or under represented in it. Ideally, it is desirable to study the entire population, but it will often be too costly or not practical to do so. Hence, in this study, a sampling frame was used to draw the sample from the complete list of all the units in the population. The population in this case was all Tourism PPP projects and Tourism PPP project stakeholders within South Africa. Sampling was therefore, the next step in the process.
Sampling is the selection of some subset of participants or other objects of study from the relevant population of all such participants or objects (Edmond & Kennedy, 2013).
However, in this study, there was a real challenge of a rare population. A ‘rare population’ is the term used to describe small target groups of interest to researchers. Sometimes what makes a population rare is not its absolute size but its size relative to available frames that cover it. When chosen as target populations, rare populations, as argued by Groves (2009), poses considerable problems in identifying suitable sampling frames. Due to the limitation of the number of available Tourism PPP applications or companies that have gone through the application process, the deliberate sampling method was considered along with a number of other methods. The multi-stage sampling technique was explored, but found not to be suitable since this is a rare population.
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Sampling methods can be classified into those that yield probability samples and those that yield non- probability samples. In the former, the probability of selecting each respondent is known. The best-known form of probability sampling is the random sample. In the random sample, every unit in a population has an equal chance has a chance to be chosen in a sample.
This is true regardless of the differences or similarities. Stratified sampling is where the researcher divides the population into homogenous sub-groups and then randomly select participants from each sub-group. Further to this, and the multi-stage sampling combines any of these techniques. The other method considered was random selection which, according to Yin (2016:138) “relies on a basic principle used to try to avoid bias in a sample.
Unlike the simple random sampling, stratified random sampling involves selecting research participants based on the membership in a situation/stratum. Dividing the sampling frame into strata or sub-groups, allows the researcher to sample people proportionately based on the size of the stratum, for example, projects such as project advisory committee members.
The advantage of stratified sampling is that it can be applied to more than one variable simultaneously (Edmond & Kennedy, 2013). According to Merian (2009), stratified sampling consists of drawing a sample from each of the several categories (strata) of a total population.
Sometimes researchers have prior information regarding certain characteristics of a population composition, and they want to select the sample that reflects this. Stratification is used to guarantee that variance in different variables is measured, such as sampling from areas of different influence and that influences are removed (Creswell, 2014). In stratified sampling, independent selections are made from each stratum one by one. Separate samples are drawn from each such group using the same section procedure (such as stratification and stratified sampling in each stratum, when the frame lists elements) or using different selection procedures cluster sampling, for example (Edmond & Kennedy, 2013). This deliberate sampling method is commonly known as a purposive or non-probability sampling and involves purposive or deliberate selection of particular units of the specific universe under investigation to constitute a sample which represented the said universe, (Groves et al. 2009). As there were not more than five tourism PPPs in each of the provinces in South Africa, some participants in the sample were selected based on ease of access. Creswell (2013) calls this sampling technique convenience sampling.
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5.6.1.1 Selected PPP cases, organisations and the Treasury Approval stages of projects selected
As well as sample selection, sample size is a critical aspect of research methodology. The correct sample size is dependent upon the nature and size of the population and the purpose of the study. Patton (2014) argues that although general rules are hard to make when it comes to sample size, the general rule is that 8 - 12 cases as organisations, are a reasonable number for analysis, depending on the field of study. Although this view was held in 1987, it is notable, that research analysts like Swanborn (2010) and Patton (2014) still support this general rule. In this research, 6 cases were analysed. This is due to the rare population identified earlier in the discussion.
Table 2 provides the list of projects that were sampled, sitting at various project stages. Some of the projects have ended without reaching the project completion stage. The star ( ) in a cell indicates where the process is currently or where it has failed within a particular organization. There are six projects that were identified for the study. These projects were linked to the leading organizations for the projects (Table 2). As highlighted in Table 2, the PPP projects have to go through two key phases of procurement, i.e. the project preparatory phase and the Treasury Approval Phase. The project preparatory phase is where an idea to engage in PPP’s is proposed until the final authority is given by the accounting authority after consultation with all stakeholders.
The second phase is the Treasury Approval phases. There are three sub-phases within the Treasury Approval Phase. These sub-phases of the PPP procurement process approvals are provided and regulated by the National Treasury. They are referred to as TA1, TA2 and TA 3.
The sample of projects selected had to be at different stages so as to get a range of opinions or experience from the participants. Table 2 below indicates projects or PPP cases, organizations linked to the projects and the stage at which the project ended or failed at. The detailed background on projects is presented in Appendix A.
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