Evaluating the Anti‐Corruption Capabilities of Public e‐Procurement in a Developing Country

Abstract

This paper reports on research undertaken in Nepal into perceptions of trust in public eprocurement systems and of their anti-corruption capabilities. The research set out to examine the relationships between factors including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, trust, and intent to adopt anti-corruption technology in public procurement. The research was guided by the Technology Acceptance model and Principal-agent theory. The findings suggest that the intent-to-adopt public e-procurement has a positive and significant relationship with concepts of usefulness, ease of use, and trust when democratic governments in developing countries attempt to combat corruption in public procurement.Keywords: Public e-procurement, intent-to-adopt e-procurement, technology acceptance, perceived benefits 1.INTRODUCTION Public e-procurement is one of the important factors in public procurement reform and can play a significant supporting role in making governments more transparent and accountable. Reducing corruption in public procurement has been on the agenda of many governments (Henriksen & Andersen, 2003). There is interest in the application of public e-procurement technology to enhance efficiency to improve the speed and quality of procurement processes, and importantly to enhance transparency and accountability in government procurement. According to Vaidya & Hyde (2011) e-procurement has been popular in advanced countries like Australia, UK, and USA as well as in governments in emerging economies including China, India, Mexico, South Korea, and Brazil, which are implementing e-procurement initiatives. E-procurement is seen as an effective way to better support transparency and accountability (Joongi, 2006).For the purpose of this study, public e-procurement has been defined as "the use of any internet-based inter-organisational information systems that automates and integrates any parts of procurement process in order to improve efficiency, transparency, and accountability in the wider public sector" (Vaidya, 2007). While there are various types of e-procurement technologies, this study has considered mainly e-tendering and e-marketplace as main technologies. As both technologies have been identified as the class of technology, which contribute to reducing corruption in public procurement, it is expected that it will help generalise the results. EJISDC (2012) In a review of the literature in public e-procurement, Brun et al. (2010) found evidence for five areas of benefit including greater transparency, control, decentralisation, maverickbuying reduction, and supply based rationalisation. Wen & Wei (2007) found the benefits of public e-procurement to be greater efficiency, lower cost, and time saved per transaction, as well as greater flexibility, and enhanced accessibility of procurement information, faster communication, and quick response time, and improved procurement quality. Gunasekaran et al. (2009) examined the adoption of public e-procurement in SMEs and recommended different key factors that we...

An Empirical Evaluation Of The Potential Of Public E-Procurement To Reduce Corruption

“…The finding also supports previous research by Neupane et al (2012a) that highlighted the anticorruption capabilities of public e-procurement in developing countries. Pathak et al (2008) suggests that electronic government initiatives improved government-citizen relationship and reduce corruption.…”

Sustainable Road Design: Promoting Recycling and Non-Conventional Materials

“…Its introduction in India and Indonesia has been analyzed [69], leading to the conclusion that either quality goes up (India) or delays are reduced (Indonesia). Neupane et al [70] also report positive experience in Nepal, particularly an increase in the level of trust in the procurement process. They concluded that e-procurement cuts down on the opportunities for secret meetings between bidders and public sector officials.…”

Exploring anti-corruption capabilities of e-procurement in construction project delivery in Nigeria

“…Other studies have also been done in the UK (Eadie et al, 2010;Eadie, Perera and Heaney, 2011), Malaysia (Hashim, Said and Idris, 2014), and South Africa (Ibem and Laryea, 2015) on the use of e-Procurement in the construction industry. In addition, other authors (Sohail and Cavill, 2008;Neupane, Soar and Vaidya, 2012) have noted that the use e-Procurement has great potentials to reduce the level of corruption in the acquisition of goods, services, and works by governments, while evidence from Malaysia shows that the use of online tendering system had helped to reduce the level of corruption in construction project delivery in that country (Zakaria, et al, 2014).…”

“…As a result, several measures for reducing corruption in construction project delivery have been identified by previous authors (see for examples Zou, 2006;Ameyaw and Mensah, 2013;Chan and Owusu, 2017;Owusu et al, 2019). However, electronic (e-) Procurement, which is the use of the Internet to acquire works, goods and services (Vitkauskaite and Gatautis, 2008;Laryea, 2015, Aduwo et al, 2017), has been recognized as a powerful tool for improving transparency and reducing the incidences of corrupt practices in all forms of procurement activities (Neupane, Soar and Vaidya, 2012;Zakaria, et al, 2014;World Economic Forum, 2016;OECD, 2016).…”