Purpose This paper aims to examine how three informal practices in Portuguese public procurement – informal suggestion of invitees, supplier input to specifications and indirect continuity of incumbent resources – emerge and become justified in a highly regulated procurement environment. Design/methodology/approach It uses an interpretive qualitative design based on 26 interviews in Portugal with 21 public-sector managers and five supplier-side managers. Reflexive thematic analysis is combined with pro-social rule-breaking (PSRB) and public value theory; a supplementary KH Coder frequency, concordance and co-occurrence audit assesses lexical convergence and divergence with manually developed themes. Findings The practices arise from tensions between procedural duration and urgency, technical uncertainty and neutrality, reliability and openness and continuity and limits on repeated contracting. Direct rule deviation and ambiguity-based rule-bending are distinguished. Practitioners invoke continuity, technical adequacy, risk reduction and public interest, while the same practices can compress transparency, competition, equal treatment and legitimacy. Social implications Integrity reforms must address how prosocial narratives can normalize practices that both protect services and close markets. Formal, documented and contestable mechanisms are needed for market consultation, continuity planning and technical exceptions. Originality/value The article shows that the same informal procurement practice can produce substantive public value while undermining procedural public value, extending PSRB to a dyadic, market-mediated setting.
Purpose This study aims to document cross-country configurations of procurement centralisation and digitalisation, focusing on the unrecorded combination of a central purchasing body (CPB) without national e-procurement. Design/methodology/approach The analysis combines Global Public Procurement Database indicators with public-finance and macroeconomic data whose source fields span 2018–2023. The estimation sample contains 203 country-year outcome observations representing 79 countries. Country-level OLS and pooled fractional-logit models provide supporting, non-causal expenditure comparisons. Findings Under the main coding rule, which codes missing CPB entries as zero, three configurations are recorded: No CPB/No eProc, No CPB/eProc and CPB/eProc. No recorded case combines CPB with no e-procurement. Supporting expenditure and governance interaction estimates are imprecise and not statistically significant. Research limitations/implications CPB reporting is incomplete, the architecture indicators capture formal presence rather than implementation and the design cannot establish a reform sequence. The missing cell is therefore a recorded-data pattern, not proof that the architecture does not exist. Social implications Countries considering central purchasing should assess whether shared digital infrastructure, interoperable reporting and implementation capacity are already in place or must be developed alongside it. Originality/value The study treats configuration support and missingness as substantive features. It reframes an unsupported interaction test as a research agenda on sequencing, reporting capacity, measurement and institutional architecture.
Purpose This study aims to examine whether Masters in Public Administration (MPA) programs adequately prepare public administrators for careers in public procurement in the same manner that they prepare students for professional roles in human resources or financial management. It argues that the growing importance of organizational capacity in public procurement across the three sectors necessitates an expansion of MPA curricula. Specifically, the study contends that technical skills training, case-based instruction and engagement with theoretical and empirical literature are essential components in the preparation of public procurement professionals. The study analyzes these issues through the lens of signaling theory. Design/methodology/approach This study draws on course catalog, syllabus and survey data to examine the extent to which these key components are incorporated into stand-alone public procurement courses within MPA curricula. Findings The results show that public procurement courses are not widely offered in MPA programs. This indicates that, while some scholars argue that public procurement is indeed a subfield of public administration, the degree often does not prepare students for the field. However, where public procurement courses are offered, the degree can credibly signal that students are prepared for careers in the field. Social implications Learning about public procurement in MPA programs will help inculcate ethical values into the field. This is why it is important to investigate why MPA programs should have stand-alone procurement courses. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first that could be identified to assess the offerings and substance of public procurement courses in MPA programs. This is important because we want to know whether the MPA degree can be taken as a credible signal that graduates are trained in public procurement.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to make the case for the inclusion of lotteries in public procurement toolkits when governance and institutional weaknesses lead to recurring undesirable contract award outcomes. Design/methodology/approachThe authors review different strands of the literature on auctions, corruption and experimental economics and build a simple model reviewing the different benefits and tradeoffs, of including lottery toolboxes into existing auction processes. FindingsFor contracts awarded through auctions, a lottery component can increase quality and reduce risks related to limited liability, renegotiations and bid-rigging. For negotiated contracts, a lottery component can reduce corruption risks related to the selection processes of bidders, decision committee members or auditors. The summary of the still modest empirical evidence shows promising prospects but also some limitations. The paper argues that more experiments would help to refine the opportunities identified by the theoretical literature. Social implicationsBy potentially reducing inefficiencies and corruption, lotteries can increase the quality and cost-effectiveness of public services, directly benefiting communities. Improved procurement practices can lead to better infrastructure, healthcare and education services, particularly in developing countries where inefficiencies are most pronounced. Fairer and more transparent procurement processes can increase public trust in government institutions. Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to provide the first comprehensive case for the integration of lottery-based tools in all forms of procurement. The authors bring together seemingly disconnected strands of research in a single toolbox that helps understand the different trade-offs at play and the various ways in which the potential benefits of lotteries can be leveraged.
Purpose This study aims to analyze the effect of the quality of preparatory actions, operational efficiency and optimal process allocation on the performance of university public procurement.Design/methodology/approach A mixed nonexperimental methodological approach was adopted, integrating inferential statistical analysis, multicriteria prioritization, efficiency evaluation and mathematical optimization. The data comes from surveys of 152 public servants, a document review of the Annual Procurement Plan and records from the State Electronic Procurement System for the period 2019-2024, as well as ex post control reports. Preparatory actions were prioritized using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), technical efficiency was evaluated using data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the optimal allocation of processes was estimated using integer linear programming (ILP).Findings This study proposes a prescriptive and replicable analytical framework that links diagnosis, prioritization and optimization, providing empirical evidence to strengthen decision-making and improve the performance of public procurement in decentralized public universities.Research limitations/implications This study was based on information corresponding to a public university and a specific period (2019-2024), which may limit the direct generalization of the results to other institutional contexts. Furthermore, although the integrated AHP-DEA-ILP approach allows for robust analysis, the results depend on the quality of the available data and the assumptions inherent in each method. Future studies could expand the analysis by incorporating multiple institutions, more extensive longitudinal evaluations or dynamic optimization approaches.Practical implications The results provide operational evidence for public universities to reorient the allocation of hiring processes without requiring budget increases. The proposed framework allows for the identification of bottlenecks, the prioritization of preparatory actions and the redistribution of operational burdens toward more efficient modalities, constituting a concrete tool to support decision-making for public managers and planning officials.Social implications By improving the efficiency and execution of university procurement, the proposed approach indirectly contributes to better provision of public goods and services, reducing delays, economic losses and risks of regulatory noncompliance. This promotes more responsible use of public resources and strengthens public confidence in institutional management.Originality/value This study provides a prescriptive and integrated approach that links diagnosis, prioritization, efficiency and optimization in the analysis of university public procurement. Unlike predominantly descriptive studies, it proposes a replicable framework that translates performance evaluation into concrete operational decisions, contributing both to the literature on public management and to the practice of evidence-based institutional planning.
