Public procurement is the commercial arm of governments, contracting for goods, and services to feed public sector service provision. However, mainstream operations and supply chain management journals have published little on supply chains to governments, public procurement, and the significance of engaging small businesses in government supply chains. Policy feedback theory and thirteen coproduced international case studies of public procurement and small business agency dyadic relationships are used to explore this space. The research highlights the importance of both public procurement and small business as areas of policy and supply chain management research. Policy feedback theory is introduced as a means to understand relationships and is applied to a coproduction study to understand how supply chain management research can both explore and change policy.

Evidencing Positive Sustainable Procurement in Developing Nations : A Case Study Comparison of Indonesia and African Nations

In this chapter we examine the specific issue of public procurement, its importance to local, regional, national, and international economies as evidenced in a unique international comparative research study – the International Research Study of Public Procurement (IRSPP). First the public procurement literature is examined. Then the story of IRSPP is told – why and how it was formed, and the five phases of research that have been conducted to date since 2003. The phases build on prior phases as knowledge and priorities for research have unfolded. To date IRSPP has contributed to knowledge and changed public procurement practice internationally, specifically relating to understanding international differences and similarities, understanding sectoral issues, examining capacity and capability, exploring the strategic role of public procurement in supporting and delivering economic stimulus packages, and examining how governments can improve engagement of small to medium enterprises in government procurement contracts. It is concluded that it is not necessarily the case that the developed world is outperforming less developed nations; powerful lessons have been learnt from developing nations in terms of their ability to use public procurement as a lever of economic and societal reform and integrate it more fully in government policy and practice.

The management of services creates a new and exciting development in business relationship management. It is a field which grows as organizations increasingly seek to specialize and also replace in-house service delivery with contractual relationships with suppliers. This chapter explores many of the attributes and challenges of planning, developing, and managing service contracts within complex supply chains.

The historical relationship between government and procurement and the impact of procurment behaviour on public policy seems little discussed.. Many reviews of procurement place the antecedents of procurement in quite recent times. The reality is quite different. A significant level of evidence embeds the relationship between government and procurement policy and practices in ancient civilisation. Furthermore, since the Middle Ages, a number of governments have embarked on global trade in quite unexpected circumstances. In this paper, the author draws on new evidence to trace the history of procurement through the lens of public sector domination of new markets (in Asia and Africa in particular) by a number of European countries which sought to advance their colonial interests (and national wealth). The author then makes a complete shift to examine the way in which some private sector commercial interests have sought to doominate their markets, first by reducing competition and then, second, by dominating supplier markets. In this way, the author argues that the incidence of mergers and takeovers together with a range of opportunistic behaviours can be seen to subvert the impact of open competition. This paper examines the influence of procurement policy through both historical and contemporary lenses. It is a paper designed to provoke much wider thinking about the collective origins and influence of procurement policy and practices, the contrasts between the past and present public policy and some of the challenges faced by the intended beneficiaries of public policy. * Curtin University, Perth, Australia CAN PUBLIC POLICY BE CHALLENGED BY SUPPLIER MANAGEMENT POLICIES?

PurposeThis paper seeks to explore sources of political and administrative challenges which arise from an absence of alignment of supply chains linking the activities of public agencies.Design/methodology/approachThe performance measurement challenges created by an apparent absence of alignment within public sector supply chains are explored from a conceptual perspective, through the supply chain and public sector performance management literature. A case study is provided to highlight the practical and organizational challenges facing politicians, policy makers and public sector managers when they seek to demonstrate to their stakeholders, including the general community, the performance efficiency of their agencies.FindingsThere is an absence of research and debate concerning the alignment of inter‐agency supply chains and the potential this creates for delivery performance failure that disadvantages stakeholders.Research limitations/implicationsWhile this is a conceptual paper, the existence of recurring supply chain problems between agencies, as illustrated by the case study, provides practical conclusions of use to practitioners and policy makers.Originality/valueThe paper revisits earlier literature on performance measurement in the public sector and applies this to a supply chain situation to explore problems in measuring and managing inter‐organizational supply chains which exist not only between public agencies but also between private sector organisations undertaking outsourced contracts on behalf of government.

Establishing supply chains to improve delivery of goods and to source Aboriginal produce and on-sell products from remote communities offers significant opportunities for sustainable development and improved liveability in remote communities. It also forces a revision of what constitutes efficient freight logistics in desert areas. In addressing challenges for freight services in Desert Australia the main research objective is to develop a methodology for evaluating current freight logistics using a set of metrics incorporating economic, environmental and social parameters. The structure of existing freight logistics models (generally based on algorithms of time, distance and cost) does not allow for the incorporation of environmental and social elements into an evaluation. Furthermore, the relevant literature demonstrates the shortcomings of this approach. Consequently, the paper outlines an extension of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach to performance management (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). The interrelationship of the four existing perspectives contained within this multi-dimensional performance measurement (MDPM) model have been extended to include social and environmental aspects.

Felsic and mafic magmas in continental crustal settings are derived by melting of the lower crust and mantle, respectively. This occurs in subduction zone, collisional, extensional and intraplate settings. This chapter reviews the linked processes of magma segregation, ascent and emplacement in the deep to mid-crust, with an emphasis on felsic magmas and continental crustal settings. We follow felsic magmas from their segregation and extraction from deep crustal anatectic zones, to their focusing into either bulk or channelled ascent pathways, to their emplacement in large tabular magma reservoirs in the mid-crust. We argue that crustal-scale magma plumbing systems are self-organised from the bottom-up, whereby the efficiency and rate of melt segregation and the mechanism of magma focusing in source regions determine the mode of magma ascent and eventual length and time scales of pluton location and growth in the mid-crust.

Procurement has undergone a significant revolution in identity, in practice, and in its professional focus. The principal procurement drivers of accountability, efficiency, and value for money have coincided with significant advances in information technology. An immediate consequence was a need to cut the cost of government, one of the paths being to change procurement policies and practice. The chapter outlines the cases which provide examples of ways in which local and state governments may find themselves operating to manage the rapidly emerging economic pressures, while maintaining the professional integrity of the procurement process through minimizing costs and seeking to gain maximum benefit for the polity. Coupled with the ongoing focus on technological advances in the procurement field and a more uncertain economic and social environment in the near term, these expectations will continue to challenge the procurement professional.

A variety of innovations in software development practices, referred to by the collective term agile, have arisen in recent years partly as an attempt to deal with the considerable amount of complexity inherent in many software development projects. These agile approaches to software development are increasingly gaining acceptance with suppliers of software development services. Agile, in its various forms, appears to be a range of supplier responses to a set of problems traditionally incurred in contracted software development projects. Yet the extent to which the needs of the public sector (as one category of procurer) are faced is more questionable. Are the needs of a public sector procurer really satisfied with agile methods and practices as the framework for software development? Is agile really the solution to the original problem set?

The popularity of outsourcing has remained undiminished in Australia as governments seek to achieve the goals of economic efficiency, debt minimisation and service delivery. The emergence of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) or Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) has resulted in a more complex phase of the outsourcing process and has coincided with the increased opportunities for private equity funds to successfully bid for PPP/PFI contracts. Private equity capital is a fundamental feature of a capitalist economy; however, the aggregation of large amounts of private funds to participate in PPPs/PFIs represents a new trend that should be evaluated by public managers when negotiating PPPs at the contract formation and contract management stages of such arrangements. While the process of creating a PPP or PFI may be transparent, the financial progress of the project over a 20-30 year period may not be adequately disclosed, so that the expectations of both government and civil society cannot be fully assessed. This paper will draw on certain recent PPP experiences, focusing on some features of private equity that have created unexpected risk to the state and to taxpayers. The research suggests that the financial and operating structures of PPPs must meet the needs of the state to solve its financial and service delivery dilemmas without creating additional risk by uncritical acceptance of complex, highly leveraged contracting arrangements with private equity groups.