Public procurement of innovation and local authority procurement: procurement modes and framework conditions in three European cities

Local authorities present complex implementation settings for public procurement of innovation (PPI) practices and include a range of barriers, yet their proximity to citizens and local economic actors suggests that they are likely to encounter unmet needs in advance of national governments, creating potential to act as lead users. This paper develops a conceptualisation of the local authority procurement environment, using it as a framework for analysing the potential for PPI in three city authorities across Europe, representing three distinct modes of public procurement: functional procurement, tactical procurement and strategic procurement. The paper proposes that local authorities are broadly characterised by cyclical, geographically bounded procurement activity, which contains potential for stimulating incremental innovation through normal procurement activity if the external institutional setting is permissive. The paper suggests conditions for increasing the possibilities for more disruptive innovation through local authority procurement and areas for further research.     

An institutional approach to research on public procurement of innovation

The role of public procurement as a means to stimulate innovation has been increasingly emphasized during the last few years. The general argument is that, by applying intelligent demand, public agencies can stimulate private sector innovation that will eventually sustain competitive advantage in a global economy. The emphasis on public procurement used as an innovation policy instrument challenges current institutional practices and skills. The article is based on the assumption that the innovation research community could inform this policy discourse, in particular by drawing on institutional theory, but in order to fully utilize this potential, further revision of the research perspectives seen is needed. The article therefore discusses an institutional approach based on three modes: “multilevel institutional analysis”, “endogenous and exogenous institutions” and “institutions as rationalities”, arguing that such an approach would help to increase innovation research quality and policy relevance.     

Public procurement of innovation: empirical evidence from EU public authorities on barriers for the promotion of innovation

Public procurement is seen as a powerful instrument for innovation policy, but meaningful barriers seem to hinder its deployment. This study reviews literature on complexity, time consumption, and risk representing important hindrances for the procurement of innovation from public buyers' perspective. Findings provide evidence on the existence of hindrances for public procurement of innovation across European Union member states through the analysis of data from a large-scale survey. Further, differences in terms of the perception of barriers become evident depending on the availability of monitoring systems for innovation performance.     

Unveiling the public procurement market in Brazil: A methodological tool to measure its size and potential

Public procurement plays a key role both in the proper functioning of public administration and in the realization of broader policy objectives. This article aims to present a methodology to assess the Brazilian public procurement market based on government statistics, as well as reflect on the potential of public procurement policy for the development of the country. The article found that public procurement comprised an average of 13.8% of Brazil's gross domestic product during 2006−2012. The Brazilian public procurement market is comparable to that of a typical Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) country. These findings imply great potential for public procurement in Brazil as a policy instrument for promoting the country's development.     

Risk management in public procurement for innovation: the case of Nordic–Baltic Sea cities

State support for innovation in enterprises has been long-standing. One of the specific support measures is public procurement for innovation, which has only recently re-emerged in academic discussion as well as in the European policy discourse. While the spillovers from this type of innovation policy measure may be substantial, the complex processes underlying the support for innovation through public procurement are associated with high risks. We take an exploratory approach to determine the state of practice of risk management in public procurement for innovation at the local level. Five case studies, which were selected as representative cases of the Nordic–Baltic Sea region in Europe, were analyzed. We found that the cities were, for the most part, actively involved in risk identification; the risks are primarily being met with mixed contracting strategies rather than comprehensive risk management tools.     

Quo vadis public procurement of innovation?

Governments are actively looking for ways to use public procurement so that it would become more effective in facilitating innovation across public and private sectors. However, a shift towards public procurement of innovation (PPI) has proven to be difficult. Whereas the contemporary debate has mostly focused on how to reduce the barriers of PPI through re-conceptualizing the procurement process, there is a need to take into account also wider strategic factors through which governments create capacity to undertake PPI. By revisiting historic and contemporary policy initiatives, four strategies for the future can be envisioned: PPI as experimental innovation policy, from fiscal policy under austerity to PPI, mission-oriented PPI and shifts in administrative culture towards PPI. Each of the strategies demands different capacities from the entrepreneurial sector, as well as state, policy and administrative capacities from the public sector. These issues should be an inherent part of future policy-making and offer new avenues for PPI-related policy analysis and academic research.     

Project agreements and government procurement

I discuss the recent proliferation of mandatory project labor agreements in government procurement, some of the ensuing litigation, and the effects of such agreements on contractors, workers, and the public.     

Can service innovations be procured? An analysis of impacts and challenges in the procurement of innovation in social services

This paper addresses the challenges that arise when service innovations are being promoted through public procurement. The academic and policy debate on public procurement of innovation has recently been very vivid, but it has mostly focused on procurement of technologies and tangible goods while considerably less attention has been paid to public procurement of innovation in services. By drawing on conceptual tools from the literature on service innovation and public procurement of innovation, the paper examines an empirical case of procurement of social services for substance abusers carried out by the city of Helsinki, Finland. In particular, the article analyzes whether the characteristics of services and service innovation are compatible with processes and requirements of public procurement. The article shows that service innovations can be procured, but the features of services and service innovation such as intangibility, interactivity, and difficulty to measure the impacts of new services affect the procurement process and set particular requirements for it.     

Tools of innovative public procurement in health care in Poland

This paper sets out to map the issues of innovation in public procurement in Poland with specific reference to health care and presents case studies of Polish hospitals using an innovative approach to public procurement. It is based on the analysis of secondary data collected using Internet search engines, introductory research conducted in hospitals which have recently used innovative procurement tools (e.g. technical dialogue and competitive dialogue) and the experience of two Polish hospitals involved in projects aimed at increasing the efficiency of procurement through innovations, described in a case study form. Although innovative procurement in Poland is at an early stage of development, it is also a topic of growing interest to both public authorities and hospitals and some hospitals are adopting new procurement methods such technical and competitive dialogue. However, barriers to the adoption of new procurement approaches are evident and these delay this process of adoption. Barriers encountered include the conservative organizational culture of hospitals, lack of awareness and know-how and a lack of trust and understanding of new procurement approaches.     

政府向社会组织购买公共服务的问题与对策分析

政府向社会组织购买公共服务是我国公共服务制度的重要创新,对节约政府开支,提高公共服务效果有着重要意义。这种做法正在探索之中,购买程序、购买内容、定价、资金来源、评估机制等都存在着问题,需从两大方面探求解决途径,即政府应加大培养社会组织的力度,从法律法规层面上健全制度设计。     

Subcontracting and the incidence of change orders in procurement contracts

In public procurement, most contracts are renegotiated ex post and involve subcontractors. We examine whether there is a causal link between subcontractor use and the incidence of change orders to amend the original scope of a project. Since subcontracting is likely related to unobserved project complexity, we use a novel IV, the predicted level of subcontracting from a method modeled after Christakis et al. (2010), to estimate the likelihood of renegotiation. The results establish that subcontractors are associated with an increased likelihood of change orders as well as a higher dollar amount renegotiated.     

Social capital and innovation dynamics in district-based local systems

The idea behind this paper is that social capital (SC) is interpreted as a component of an investment, which implies entangled private and public benefits. Within a theoretical framework that considers SC as the public component of the impure public good R&D we show that the ‘civic culture’ of the district in which a firm is located is not a sufficient incentive for the firm to increase its investment in SC, because SC/networking dynamics might positively and complementarily evolve only if the opportunity cost of investing in innovation is sufficiently low. Consequently, we focus our attention on a specialised biomedical industrial district characterised by a strong pattern of innovative activity. We observe that R&D and networking/social capital arise as complementary driving forces of innovation outputs. When the empirical evidence confirms that this complementarity plays a key role, policy efforts should be targeted toward both market and non-market characteristics, rather than solely to the production of local public goods or innovation inputs as independent elements of firm performance. This is very important in terms of policy effectiveness. In fact, we argue that SC/networking dynamics might positively evolve only if the private opportunity cost of investing in R&D innovation is sufficiently low. Nevertheless, this exogenous economic incentive works as long as complementarity, as defined here, holds.     

上海社会组织发展机制和体制改革研究

上海社会组织的发展不仅需要创新模式,更需要突破传统体制机制的制约。上海需探索成立市级社会组织管理服务中心,建立社会组织管理服务的第三方评价制度;出台政府购买服务的指导目录,制定政府购买服务的办法,建立政府购买服务资金的增长机制;加大社会组织人才扶持力度,出台公益人才扶持政策,打造公益人才培训基地;制订免税扩围政策,如细化免税对象、扩大免税内容、简化免税审批流程;建立扶持社会组织发展的资金体系,如建立支持草根社会组织的扶持资金、支持企业设立公益基金、设立社会组织发展的公共资金专户;开展社会组织改革创新试点,建立国际社会组织集聚园区,开展服务于外来人口的社会组织综合创新试点,建立与国际对接的志愿者服务体系。     

What are the likely interactions among innovation,government debt,and employment?

The study here analyzes the interactions among labor, R&D intensity, and public expenditure on education (indicators of innovation), considering public debt of countries. The study is based on 27 European countries over the 1995–2009 and applies multiple regression analysis. Main findings seem to be: a significant interaction of public expenditure on education and R&D intensity with employment rate, whereas an increase of general government consolidated gross debt has a negative interaction for employment rate as well as for technology indicators. The theoretical framework and empirical evidence suggest vital political economy implications to support employment rate during contractions of the business cycle. In particular, considering the specificity of the economic structure of countries, a fruitful lung-run political economy of growth should slowly dry out public debt by supporting GDP growth, rather than reducing government debt with high taxation and balanced-budget rules, in order to decrease frictional effects for patterns of economic, technological, and employment growth.     

An evaluation of transit procurement training

We evaluated a training course called “Orientation to Transit Procurement”, designed and conducted by the National Transit Institute. This course is designed to provide Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grantees an overview of regulations and best practices related to the procurement process. Our objective in conducting the evaluation was to understand how transit agency staff made changes in procurement practices in response to the course training. The evaluation was mixed mode: an Internet survey followed by in-depth interviews with a small group of respondents. Survey respondents were also provided with an open-ended question providing us with additional context for our evaluation. Results show that the training is substantially successful at meeting the goal of improving procurement practices at transit agencies; indeed, most respondents report making changes at their agencies as the proximate result of the training. This was at odds with our exploration of knowledge of procurement topics, as most respondents gave inaccurate answers on multiple-choice “knowledge questions”. This may have been due to question structure or, more likely, the nature of online surveys. Suitable training on the procurement of information technology was also a main concern. The lack of training in this area is indicative of the broader challenge facing public transit agencies in how to incorporate new forms of technology into their existing practices and bureaucratic structures.     

Corruption in public procurement and private sector purchasing

Abstract

This article points out similarities and differences between purchasing by the public and private sectors outgoing from concepts of procurement processes and buying centres. It also analyses corruption issues in both sectors' purchasing activities. The focus is on public procurement within the European Union (EU), where member states have to follow the European Community directives for public procurement.     

The World Bank's Use of Country Systems for Procurement: A Good Idea Gone Bad?

The World Bank's newest country‐systems policy, adopted in 2008, allows borrowers to use their national systems to conduct procurement and manage finances for Bank‐funded projects. In principle, it will incentivise institutional reform, increase local ownership, and facilitate donor harmonisation. In practice, its content and the handling of stakeholder input seem to indicate that the Bank's dominant desire has been to preserve its market share. This article demonstrates (i) how deficiencies in the policy may reverse the Bank's work on governance and undercut aid efficiency, and (ii) how its handling of public consultations on the policy ignored the Bank's best practices. It concludes with steps for improving the policy, including re‐opening dialogue with key stakeholders.     

Does CERN procurement result in innovation?

Innovation is stated to be one of the most powerful engines for economic growth in firms, markets and nations today. It is therefore not surprising that policy-makers would like to see innovations as a benefit of publicly spent money; making innovations an additional aim of public procurement (public procurement for innovation). The aim of the paper is to analyse the impact of a science organization's procurement practices on innovation. The intention is also to show how different and contradicting goals and expectations regarding public procurement are described and acted upon by the science organization and its suppliers, and to what extent the outcome of public procurement is innovation. Empirically, the study addresses how the European Organization for Nuclear Research, i.e. CERN, works with procurement; and how their procurement in turn affects CERN's suppliers. Based on a large case study in which more than 100 interviews were conducted over a time period of 8 years, the study contributes to the understanding of the limitations CERN’s procurement rules put on interaction and on innovation. The understanding of the implications of restricting interaction, but also the understanding of the reasons why these rules are put into place, and the dilemmas that follow, are all important contributions.     

行业特色地方高校实施“卓越工程师教育培养计划”的思考与研究——以郑州轻工业学院的探索实践为例

“卓越工程师教育培养计划”作为高等工程教育的重大改革项目,对于高等教育的改革与发展具有重要的作用。郑州轻工业学院作为一所具有行业特色的地方高校,在自身原有优良传统基础上,开展了一系列有益的探索与实践：通过各类专题研讨会,明晰思路,完善方案;广泛深入开展调研,借鉴经验,查找不足;制定相关管理办法,政策保障,稳步推进;加强校企合作,积极探索,创新模式等。提出了行业特色地方高校实施“卓越计划”工作的新思考：更新工程教育理念是前提,创新人才培养模式是核心,搭建实践创新平台是保障,深化实践教学改革是关键。     

Quality self-control and co-supervision mechanism of construction agent in public investment project in China

Public investment project (PIP) plays an important role in the China economy. In order to improve the project management performance of public projects, the government is searching for a scientific system to build a construction management supervision mode. This paper introduces the policy background and connotation of Agent Construction System (ACS). As a public investment construction management model, ACS, is gradually being incorporated into the legal framework, it is necessary to improve the construction agent supervision mechanism. This article analyzes the supervision mechanism of construction agent quality management under the principle of two-stage agent mode and establishes an agent quality self-control system and a government co-supervision system. These systems take the contract management as the core and the project quality objective as the guidance. These systems also consist of a two-dimensional framework of vertical self-control and horizontal supervision, which form a quality supervision mechanism. Based on Rough Set theory, the article proposes the idea of building an agent quality self-control and government co-supervision model, and illustrates it with a flow chart for building the model, which paves the way of quantitative research for the future.