Due to the wide spread acknowledgment of Public Private Partnership, the number of stakeholders as well as their multiple interests and heterogeneous environments are gradually growing. Hence, the demand for external information on Public Private Partnership projects is increasing; enlarged publication duties beyond the existing accounting regulations are required.

This empirical study answers the question if private partners inform interested parties about their Public Private Partnership project and, if so, to what extent and in which way, respectively. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the sample’s annual reports hereby differentiates among the legal frameworks of the balance sheets concerned, the segments in which the companies are listed, their own branches, and the branches of the respective Public Private Partnership projects. The sample concentrates on all listed enterprises on the Austrian stock exchange within the year 2005 in which the latest changes on publication duties were first applied due to new EC-regulations on enlarged business reporting. Reports with proven Public Private Partnership participation are examined more closely with the qualitative method of a content analysis; the quantitative results are tested for significance.

The results points out that only little and predominantly unspecific information on Public Private Partnerships included in the sample’s annual reports. The empirical survey of the reporting practices of the in Austria listed enterprises initiates the discussion on extended reporting duties according to national and supranational accounting regulations particularly with regard to business partnerships and other kinds of co-operations.

The relevance for a comprehensive economic value of the results is obvious: First, Austria is not as engaged in Public Private Partnership as other European countries, which may lead to the conclusion that either not many high-volume projects are conducted anyway, or that such projects are financed in different, maybe less efficient ways. Second, little information is given on such projects, which may lead to the conclusion that stakeholder information does not seem to be relevant to Austrian firms, which again may deter foreign investors from engaging in Austrian projects, leading to inefficient financing structures.