E-Procurement and Innovation in the Portuguese Municipalities: When Change Is Mandatory

Luís Soares () and Adão Carvalho ()
Additional contact information
Luís Soares: Câmara Municipal de Castro Verde

A chapter in State, Institutions and Democracy, 2017, pp 363-388 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Changing the traditional pattern of public procurement for an electronic paradigm is a radical innovation involving major organizational changes, the breaking up of traditional processes and practices, obsolescence of knowledge and skills. Going beyond the European Commission’s recommendations, in 2009 Portugal pioneered in making e-procurement mandatory in the pre-award phase, in a European context of multiple technical standards and lack of interoperability of electronic platforms across the EU countries. Six years later, when the creation of a European e-procurement single market is a EU mission and a major legislative amendment is underway in Portugal, this study looks at the relationship between e-procurement and innovation in the Portuguese municipalities aiming to understand the extent into which the adoption of e-procurement has embraced a real organizational change or represented a mere adaptation of the usual procurement practices. The study draws on data from an electronic survey to all municipalities in mainland Portugal and the analysis is mainly descriptive and exploratory. The paradigm shift in public procurement involves major organizational changes but, overall, the results suggest that most municipalities do not have a clear understanding of the innovative scope (depth and diversity) implied by e-procurement. E-procurement shows advantages over the paper-based model but an unbalanced perception of the innovation dimensions has influenced the implementation of e-procurement and the degree of organizational change.

Keywords: Organizational Change; Public Procurement; Organizational Innovation; Public Sector Organization; Procurement Process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:spr:stpocp:978-3-319-44582-3_16

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783319445823

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-44582-3_16

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Studies in Political Economy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().