Innovation in Public Management: Is Public E-Procurement a Wave of the Future? A Theoretical and Exploratory Analysis

Abstract

Project management has become an answer to many traditional organizational structuration and performance shortcomings, while gaining currency in business and public sector organizations. Public procurement systems have evolved into public electronic procurement systems with variations and distinctions in the age of globalization and digitalized complexities. This article examines the development of public e-procurement as an innovation in public management in the contexts of project management, public procurement management, and e-governance. It also links practice to theory-through a fourfold theoretical perspective-with contributions to the knowledge in public procurement, governance, and public administration.

E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services

“…This, in turn, leads to data accessibility, by also facilitating the assessment of procurement performance, and therefore, reducing corruption through the effective reporting mechanisms between purchasing officers and suppliers [9,17,18,20]. E-procurement impacts quality, by improving customer service [21], usability and professionalism [22], flexibility [19], and costs, which are reduced as lots of not useful activities are avoided [16,18,20,[23][24][25], such as on the company inventory level [25] by shortening the whole purchasing process, avoiding unnecessary activities [26,27] and bureaucracy [17,28], also through the aggregation or centralization of purchasing so that, for example, in a multinational company the supplying of inputs, which are used by all the branches, are obtained through centralized purchasing and not by a displaced one related to every branch. That kind of process can reduce unnecessary activities, shorten the process, and reduce costs [20,29].…”

“…It can, moreover, reduce the company's carbon footprint and environmental waste, improve public image, make materials last longer, and reduce expense on waste disposal and clean up [31]. E-procurement can hinder the growing deterioration of the environment, the lack of raw material resources, and the increasing levels of pollution; its implementation allows companies to reduce paper-based activities [28] throughout the dematerialization process, such as digital archives, to reduce the inventory level [25] by getting materials just in time and connecting companies and their business processes directly with suppliers, while managing all interactions between them [32]. An efficient e-procurement system helps a firm organize its interactions with its most crucial suppliers, to reduce problems with suppliers, and improve customer service [21], to shorten the whole purchasing process and improve its quality [22].…”

“…In fact, while some studies show positive impacts on company performances [37], other studies illustrate opposite and different evidence [38][39][40]. Collins [41] and Vincent-Jones [42] highlight that despite the fact that e-procurement aims to reduce or eliminate the traditional procurement drawbacks by enabling more integrated and efficient processes, it sometimes costs more than its benefits [28,36]. One of the main reasons is related to change management issues [21] that such a kind of project faces [43], and particularly resistance to the changing attitudes and practices of people inside the organization [28,36].…”

A Systematic Review of Implementation Challenges in Public E-Procurement

“…Regulatory Framework. Public procurement regulatory frameworks may present significant challenges in e-procurement implementation [21,29,57], the most pertinent ones being the mandated use of e-procurement; and the laws governing the use of digital signatures which limits the participation of SMEs in government bids. SME Issues.…”

A framework for analysing differences between public-sector and other-sector projects

“…Tabish & Jha, 2011;Rose, 2006). The others implicitly or explicitly state that their findings are valid only for public projects, (e. g. Faridian, 2015;Kim & Lee, 2009;Kwak & Smith, 2009;and Skulmoski & Hartman, 2010).…”