Search results

The purpose of this paper is to give a deeper understanding of public procurement for innovation and civil preparedness. The paper focuses on how the policy goals of innovation and preparedness are implemented in procurement practice, and explores the issues that affect innovation- and preparedness-oriented procurement.

The study is exploratory and based on empirical data from semi-structured interviews with 92 informants in the healthcare, energy and water services sectors in Finland. Interview data were analysed using a coding template, and further categorised to answer the research questions.

The study brings to light how procurers perceive the different but overlapping policy goals of innovation and preparedness, and whether and how the policy goals are turned into outcomes in the procurement process.

The data were collected from case sectors in Finland. However, considering the adoption of European Union legislation, some of the findings are generalisable in other sectors, organisations and countries.

The paper highlights aspects that can aid procurers, suppliers and policy-makers in understanding how public procurement can be an instrument linking innovation and civil preparedness.

It cannot be overemphasised that populations are exposed to more and, arguably, greater hazards. Public authorities can use innovative solutions and processes in meeting multiple objectives such as everyday societal needs as well as civil preparedness and planning.

Such research, purposely sampling case sectors providing critical services, has not been undertaken before in Finland. This work provides valuable information for organisations involved in public procurement, innovation and civil preparedness.

The Benchmark Resilience tool (BRT-53) is an organisational-level resilience quantification methodology that assesses behavioural traits and perceptions linked to the organisation's ability to plan for, respond to and recover from emergencies and crises. The purpose of this paper is to show the development and validation of a short version of the BRT-53.

Items were drawn from the BRT-53 to create two short-form versions of the tool using two different methods for comparative purposes. The first method involves the selection of items based on the 13 theoretical constructs used in the development of the original tool. This shortened index is called the BRT-13A. The second method derived 13 items from the theoretical constructs using statistical correlations of the items within each construct. This shortened index is called the BRT-13B. The scores from each short-form index were computed into overall resilience scores that were then compared with the overall resilience scores generated from the BRT-53.

The results of these comparisons found that both the BRT-13A and BRT-13B produced valid and reliably similar results to the BRT-53. The BRT-13B proved to be slightly more valid and reliable than the BRT-13A and is recommended over the BRT-53.

The BRT-13B short-form version allows for the quantification of organisational resilience while significantly decreasing the likelihood of survey fatigue and low response rates with very little sacrifice to survey validity or reliability.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue and outline its major themes and challenges, their relevance and the research opportunities the field presents.

The paper reviews prior literature and outlines the need to view public procurement as a policy tool to introduce the contributions to this special issue.

Public procurement has been consistently used to further public policies in a wide range of fields. The collection of articles in this special issue contributes to a broader understanding of the role and potential of public procurement in delivering desired policy outcomes in society. The articles show that public procurement largely has strategic aspirations, and its potential to deliver on wider societal issues is attractive to policy makers. The issues raised in this collection of articles, however, also demonstrate that public procurement often lacks strategic maturity and critical issues, notably around how to demonstrate and evaluate its impact and “success”.

This paper aims to stimulate interdisciplinary research into the role of public procurement as a policy tool and its ability to achieve public value.

This paper discusses theoretical and empirical findings that highlight the importance of public procurement for achieving public value. The special issue examines the interdisciplinary literature on public procurement and shows how it is being used to achieve public value.