Managing challenges in social care service triads – Exploring public procurement practices of Dutch municipalities

Uenk, Niels; Telgen, Jan

doi:10.1016/j.pursup.2018.08.001

Cited by 26 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Trust within a contractual relationship is fundamental to successful practice between commissioners and providers (Hudson, 2004; Rubery et al ., 2013; Högberg et al ., 2018). For instance, research from the Netherlands reported that most of their municipalities have adopted a relational contractual approach to social care rather than a competitive tendering model, which was cited as a source of conflict in the past (Uenk and Telgen, 2019). In the context of current commissioning arrangements in England, commissioners and providers may require a better understanding of the hallmarks of trust as they work together to provide home care services, answering questions such as, what are the indicators of being able to trust a provider or commissioner?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges of commissioning home care for older people in England: commissioners’ perspectives

et al. 2020

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Home care for older people in England is commissioned through local authorities working predominantly with independent providers of care. Commissioners operate in a market model, planning and procuring home care services for local populations. Their role involves ‘managing’ and ‘shaping’ the market to ensure an adequate supply of care providers. Another imperative, emerging from the principles of personalisation, is the drive to achieve user outcomes rather than ‘time and task’ objectives. Little formal research has investigated the way commissioners reconcile these different requirements and organise commissioning. This study investigated commissioning approaches using qualitative telephone interviews with ten commissioners from different local authorities in England. The characteristics of commissioning were analysed thematically. Findings indicated (a) commissioning involved complex systems and processes, uniquely shaped for the local context, but frequently changed, suggesting a constant need for reframing commissioning arrangements; (b) partnerships with providers were mainly transactional, with occasional examples of collaborative models, that were considered to facilitate flexible services more appropriate for commissioning for personalised outcomes; and (c) only a small number of commissioners had attempted to reconcile the competing and incompatible goals of tightly prescribed contracting and working collaboratively with providers. A better understanding of flexible contracting arrangements and the hallmarks of a trusting collaboration is required to move beyond the procedural elements of contracting and commissioning.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The challenges of commissioning home care for older people in England: commissioners’ perspectives

et al. 2020

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“…At the same time, retaining a minimum for of behavioral evaluation seems useful, in line with Hirst (1981Hirst ( , 1983. Effective monitoring and evaluation should not only signal whether outcomes have been achieved, but be accompanied by discussion of how this can be improved in the future (Uenk and Telgen, 2018).…”

Section: Shirking Of Responsibility By Suppliermentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Reflecting on the insignificant effects of performance and behavior evaluation leads us to believe that differences in service complexity, for instance, could lead to variation in the effectiveness of performance and behavior specification (Sihag and Rijsdijk, 2018). While buyers that are contracting complex services such as social care rely mainly on behavior specification (Uenk and Telgen, 2018), such contractual controls are not as common when less complex services are being contracted. Additional research is therefore required to determine which configurations of performance and behavior specification are most effective when contracting specific types of services.…”

Section: Shirking Of Responsibility By Suppliermentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating Shirking Contracting Performance in Buyer-Initiated Service Triads

Nullmeier¹,

Wynstra

Valk

2020

The Oxford Handbook of Supply Chain Management

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Buyers that operate in buyer-initiated service triads must deal with the repercussions of service suppliers failing to satisfy the buyer’s customer. Performance-based contracting (PBC) can be used to shift the risks associated with performance shortfalls to service suppliers. Attaining specified performance outcomes can, however, be highly uncertain in service triads where there are many factors outside the supplier’s control. In such situations of high outcome uncertainty, suppliers may be induced to shirk their responsibilities since the direct customer–supplier link inherent to triadic structures gives suppliers an opportunity to engage in shirking without being detected. According to established theory, PBC is less effective in such situations, and behavior-based contracting (BBC) is more effective in achieving performance outcomes that are satisfactory to buyers. However, these insights are based on the long-standing assumption that PBC and BBC are substitutes. This assumption has been criticized as not being representative of empirical reality. Therefore, this chapter studies whether combining these contracting approaches during the contract design and contract management phases mitigates shirking of responsibility by suppliers. Using a data set derived from a survey questionnaire, the chapter finds that combining PBC and BBC during the contract design phase does not reduce shirking. However, the results do reveal that responsibility shirking can be mitigated by combining PBC and BBC during the contract management phase. This study provides purchasing managers with new insights concerning how to use PBC to achieve satisfactory performance outcomes, even in uncertain contexts such as service triads.

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“…Instead of arguing that regulation is the "only" way to implement policy goals in contract awarding procedures, a systematic approach is required to embrace public supplier performance management, including broader aspects of public procurement, such as supply market knowledge, collaborative relationships and long-term orientation (Loader, 2007;Keränen, 2017;Suhonen et al, 2019;Wesseling and Edquist, 2018;Uenk and Telgen, 2019). The articles in this special issue deliver important findings which we hope will encourage opportunities for further research.…”

Section: Conclusion and Implications For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%