Ethics in tendering: a survey of Australian opinion and practice

Richard Ray, John Hornibrook, Martin Skitmore and Anna Zarkada-Fraser

Construction Management and Economics, 1999, vol. 17, issue 2, 139-153

Abstract: The main issues in the philosophical foundations of ethics and tendering ethics are outlined, and an introduction is provided to the Australian codes of tendering practice. A questionnaire survey is then described which sought to ascertain the extent to which ethical behaviour in tendering is supported and practiced in Australia. The results of the survey indicate that most companies support the use of codes of tendering; defend the right of withdrawal of tenders; disapprove of bid shopping, cover pricing and union involvement in the tendering process, and support the principals' right to know what is included in a tender as well as the self-regulation of the tendering codes. It is also shown that most companies have developed, and follow, idiosyncratic ethical guidelines that are independent of, and often contrary to, the nationally prescribed codes. The conclusions recommend a need for the development of a theoretical frame of reference that can be tested through a more detailed empirical approach to the development of future ethical prescriptions in the field.

Keywords: Ethics; Tendering; Codes; Restrictive Practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/014461999371646 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:17:y:1999:i:2:p:139-153

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/014461999371646

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().