Eric Prier

USING AGENCY THEORY TO MODEL COOPERATIVE PUBLIC PURCHASING

Cooperative purchasing is beginning to receive renewed attention by scholars and practitioners alike in both the private and public sectors. Generally, cooperative purchasing arrangements have been reported to reduce costs, expedite transactions, and increase product knowledge. In the public sector, cooperative purchasing has been reported to reduce political risk, minimize “red-tape,” and, in some cases, avoid all reported social equity goals that are reported to increase costs. In this article, we contend that the lack of conceptual clarity has marred the literature on cooperative public sector purchasing, and as a result public sector purchasers have no theoretical guidelines to help them decide upon this purchasing mechanism. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to use agency theory to analyze, define, and establish a conceptual framework of cooperative public purchasing to help guide academics and practicing public sector purchasing professionals.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF A MUDDLED DEFINITION OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT

At all levels of government, inconsistencies exist regarding the terminology and the body of knowledge used to understand public procurement. Perspectives on what public procurement is, or should be, ranges from routine ordering to sophisticated analysis of government spending. Definitional ambiguities have hampered attempts to define the field and unify its focus. This exploratory article examines the implications of the muddled nature of public procurement that has led to debate and uncertainty about the proper role of public procurement practitioners. To address these limitations, three dimensions of all public procurement systems are identified, and a general definition is proposed for describing the field and its institutionalized practices.

The value of certification in public procurement: The birth of a profession?

This article discusses the unmet need for widespread certification and professionalization of those involved in public procurement. Through original data analysis, differences in perceptions regarding the value and benefits of certification among public sector procurement practitioners are examined. Findings indicate that there is growing awareness by both those holding certification and those who are not certified that certification leads to advanced knowledge and skills within the procurement area. Further, job advancement and occupational growth is perceived to be directly related to certification, and that certification holders enjoy special privilege within occupational norms.

Ethical Decision Making and Decision Support Systems in Public Procurement - A Theoretical Discussion

Decision making concerned with public procurement (PP) decisions presents a theoretical discussion of the challenges that extend beyond those associated with the purchasing function of private enterprise, because it seeks to serve the elusive concept of ‘public good’. In particular, ethical issues arising from such decision making are particularly complex. Lately, public purchasing managers have been faced with the added complexities attached to increasing levels of regulations that constrain their decision making and introduce unprecedented levels of scrutiny and requirements for compliance. Considering the broad European Union (EU) context, this research study investigates the ethical dimensions of spending public funds and considers the impact decision support systems could have on the work of managers engaged in public procurement. The article argues that public procurement creates a highly constrained setting for decision makers, which limits the range of means they can apply in their projects. This opens up a potential role for decision support system (DSS) tools in shaping the decision making of managers engaged in PP decisions and in particular in promoting ethical decisions. The main conclusion, however, is that although introducing ICT tools such as DSS may help promote such important values as transparency and accountability, the application of technology also raises fresh concerns regarding the limitations inherent in control-oriented regulations when it comes to fostering efficiency and ethical behaviours in managerial decision making.

Implementation of sustainable public procurement practices and policies: A sorting framework

In general, there are many disincentives standing in the way of promoting change in public procurement practices by government agencies. Because engaging in sustainable purchasing requires some level of entrepreneurialism and risk-taking, a sorting framework is adopted to gauge whether some organizations are systematically more likely to pursue sustainable public purchasing (SPP) efforts than others. One-way analysis of variance and other methods are applied to a survey of public procurement practitioners across over 300 governments in the U.S. Results strongly suggest that agencies of various scope and reach tend to abstain from aggressively pursuing SPP efforts. However, when they do employ SPP, these efforts tend to be quite variable across and within levels of government and organizational size. In an effort to bridge theory with empirical data, a strong case can be made that the current state of SPP in the United States is the result of random and very cautious experimentation with little systematic pattern to SPP adoption.

Examining professionalisation in public procurement by ranking practitioner job positions according to job activities

Similar to public administration over the last couple of decades, public procurement is trying to define itself as a profession. The purpose of this manuscript is to provide a framework for analysing job positions within the occupation of public procurement and to examine the fields potential for professionalisation. The data originates from a survey of public procurement practitioners administered by the Universal Public Procurement Certification Council (UPPCC) that is intended to obtain information with regards to task and knowledge areas. Distinctions can be made between job positions that serve to rank order public procurement practitioners, which may eventually lead to an argument for professionalising the occupation. The job activities performed and managed in perhaps the fastest growing occupation within the public sector are catalogued in this study. Furthermore, practitioner membership to professional associations and attainment of certifications are analysed to test for the advent of professionalisation across job positions.

Public procurement and the BLS: operationalizing occupational duties

Purpose – Procurement is a specific, yet dynamic area of work and study that is recognized as an occupation by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). However, there is growing literature that substantiates differences in theory and practice, between procurement practitioners in the private and public sectors. The purpose of this paper is to validate the procurement occupational duties identified by the BLS with actual job activities performed and managed by public sector practitioners. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a survey of public sector practitioners to obtain information with regards to occupational duties and job activities in public procurement, as compared to a BLS proxy for procurement. Findings – Public procurement practitioners complete the occupational duties identified by BLS, yet there is one occupational duty in public procurement that is absent from the BLS description for procurement. Practical implications – Empirical data and analysis identifies the potential for...

Professionalism as social responsibility in procurement and administration

Purpose The purpose of this empirical study is to identify the job tasks where decisions regarding social responsibility are likely to occur and assess the potential connections between social responsibility and professionalism. Design/methodology/approach A job study conducted by the Universal Public Procurement Certification Council (UPPCC) of 2,593 practitioners is used for data collection. Factor analysis is applied to a set of 75 procurement job tasks to determine the relationship between practitioners’ performance and management of job tasks and social responsibility variables. Findings The results suggest that there are specific job tasks performed and managed in both public and private sector procurement that share a unique relationship with social responsibility variables. Research limitations/implications The manuscript advances the research on professionalism in procurement and administration through empirically testing job tasks performed and managed by practitioners and identifying relationships between job tasks according to a professional orientation toward social responsibility. Practical implications The study shows that specific job tasks are performed and managed in procurement and administration with a social responsibility consideration. Social implications The technical nature of job tasks found to be related to social responsibility suggests a paradoxical view of the politics-administration dichotomy, and the notion that neutral tasks of both the public and private sectors are not void of a social function. Originality/value One attribute of professionalism in the literature, social responsibility, is operationalized through actual performance and management of job tasks by practitioners.

Quality Issues of Public Procurement Open Data

The previous decade has witnessed numerous open data initiatives by various levels of government around the globe to promote transparency and accountability. One crucial area is government spending or public procurement. This paper reports on an attempt to utilize purchasing data published under the international open data program of the European Union aimed at making available all expenditure data over certain thresholds from 33 European countries. The data had been planned to be used in research aimed at investigating spending and contract awarding patterns within the EU. However, the structure and quality of the data as it has been published in CSV format leave questions about accountability, and this paper serves as a functional primer warning beginner-users of the experientially-based issues of utilizing this and other open data. Key messages include that given its size and complexity this dataset is not for the faint of heart and that no current quality frameworks appear readily able to help.

RESEARCH ARTICLE: Rent-Seeking Obstacles to Changing Environmental Practices and Sustainable Public Procurement in China

Over the last 30 years China has enjoyed economic growth averaging about 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) per year. But this economic growth has come at a high environmental cost. In China approximately 750,000 premature deaths a year are attributed to high levels of environmental pollution. With the recent 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) Chinas leadership announced the launching of a green revolution that would balance the need for robust economic growth with concern for the environment and combating climate change. This paper utilizes a rent-seeking framework to explore some of the obstacles inhibiting more environmentally sustainable policies in China. We describe the situation as a struggle over the proper aligning of the individual actors behavior within an opportunistic governance structure, and we argue that rent seeking and corruption creates substantial hurdles to promoting green environmental practices and programs.