Improvement Actions for a More Social and Sustainable Public Procurement: A Delphi Analysis

Ramon Bernal, Leire San-Jose () and Jose Luis Retolaza
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Ramon Bernal: Financial Economic II Department, University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU, 48940 Vizcaya, Spain
Jose Luis Retolaza: Deusto Business School, University of Deusto, 48007 Bilbao, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 15, 1-15

Abstract: Public procurement accounts for almost 20% of Spain’s gross domestic product (GDP). The current legislation allows for the inclusion of social considerations in contracting processes, hence the interest of this study, which defines the procedures and improvement actions for socially efficient public procurement. The Delphi technique has been used, based on online surveys completed by 71 Spanish experts. The universe includes the set of nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTs), as well as a number of agents with the potential to intervene in the analysis process, namely, academia, the business sector, and public administrations. There is an increasing call for the inclusion of social considerations in tender procedures. However, to date, few studies have provided detailed insight into the inclusion of these social aspects. This study contributes to the scientific literature by identifying six possible strategies for including social considerations into public tenders, namely: objectivizing procedures, generating monitoring tools, developing information and training actions for decision-makers, incorporating awareness-raising initiatives, creating transparency systems, and including information and communication technologies (ICTs). The following four key action areas were also detected: social clauses, reserved markets, social impact assessment, and innovation in public procurement. A consensus was reached on four frames for incorporating the strategies and action areas, namely: socio-economic, procedural, competence, and conceptual. This allows for the efficient inclusion of social considerations into public tenders, thereby generating a twofold impact—one via the goods or services acquired, and the second via the impact on the process of producing said goods or services.

Keywords: social impact; public tenders; social metrics; social efficiency; social value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

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