The Determinants of Price and Quality in Competitively Tendered Contracts

Domberger, Simon; Hall, Christine; Li, Eric Ah Lik

doi:10.2307/2235110

Cited by 117 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Domberger et al, 1995;Domberger and Jensen, 1997;Industry Commission, 1996;Stolt et al, 2011). The findings are, however, more mixed when it comes to quality.…”

Section: Improving Public Services Through Competition: Theoretical Amentioning

confidence: 99%

How does competitive tendering and contracting affect satisfaction with municipal health and care services?

Holum¹

2016

International Review of Administrative Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper an investigation is made into the relationship between competitive tendering and contracting (CTC) and satisfaction with health and care services in Norwegian municipalities. There is an ongoing public debate concerning privatization and contracting as a way of providing municipal services. Several studies suggest improved productivity as well as service quality as a result. Based on public choice and property rights theories, public organizations are argued to be inefficient. Thus far, we have little knowledge about the effects of CTC on citizens' evaluations of the services exposed to CTC. To explore this, data from the Norwegian Citizen Study, covering over 35,000 individuals is employed. The findings show that citizens and users are more satisfied with health and care services that are subject to CTC compared to those provided solely by the public sector. 2 Points for practitionersThe findings of this paper encourage competitive tendering and contracting of health and care services. A positive relationship is found between CTC and satisfaction with these services. Findings provide support for arguments made in Scandinavian evaluations; the introduction of competition and contracting is argued to increase municipal focus on service quality, increased service-oriented care and is suggested as representing an improvement in attention to 'secondary needs' of residents. This is especially important for public managers in social democratic countries where the use of CTC is still a controversial topic.

show abstract

“…Domberger et al, 1995;Domberger and Jensen, 1997;Industry Commission, 1996;Stolt et al, 2011). The findings are, however, more mixed when it comes to quality.…”

Section: Improving Public Services Through Competition: Theoretical Amentioning

confidence: 99%

How does competitive tendering and contracting affect satisfaction with municipal health and care services?

Holum¹

2016

International Review of Administrative Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Finally, in a very carefully conducted study Domberger, Hall, and Li (1995) the impact of competitive tendering on price and quality was examined. The conclusions of this study were that competition had a significant (but small) impact upon price and quality.…”

Section: Lessons From the Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Sector Added Value: Can Bureaucracy Deliver?

Jackson

2001

Public Administration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper takes stock of our understanding of the ‘architecture’ of public sector resource allocation mechanisms. It is a speculative venture and provides a framework for thinking about issues rather than a completed theoretical model. The concept of architecture is borrowed from the design sciences and is used to explore the conditions of performativity within networks of relational contracts. The age‐old question of markets versus hierarchy is too simplistic. Instead, the search is for optimal complex network relationships that are based upon co‐operation and participation rather than competition and control. Within these networks the public sector, it is argued, has a new role of acting as a broker in the creation of value. Judging the public sector’s relative effectiveness in the creation of value also requires closer attention to be given to the context within which public sector managers take decisions. In particular it is necessary to acknowledge that they confront the ‘wicked’ problems of society that the electorate demand to be solved. This gives renewed interest in the notion of market failure.

show abstract

“…In the model by Grossman and Helpman (2002) the equilibrium level of outsourcing is determined by firms' trade-off between the relatively high governance costs of integrated firms as opposed to the search costs for partners by outsourcing firms. Domberger et al (1995) study competitive tendering of service provision with data on cleaning contracts: they find that competition reduced prices while the quality was maintained or even enhanced. We will discuss IT outsourcing in light of the answers provided to these questions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

IT Outsourcing in Finnish Business

2008

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. ABSTRACT: This paper reviews the characteristics and magnitude of information technology (IT) outsourcing as well as studies its labor productivity effects with a representative sample of Finnish businesses. Depending on the IT task in question, on average from one-third to two-thirds of IT has been outsourced; of the ten categories considered, the development of non-Internet business-to-business applications (e.g., EDI) is the leading activity in this respect. The various dimensions of IT outsourcing are all highly positively correlated. After controlling for industry and regional effects as well as characteristics of firms and their employees, it is found that an externally-supported computer user is about 20% more productive than an otherwise similar worker without a computer, which corresponds to about 5% output elasticity of outsourced IT; the effect of internally-supported computer use is not statistically significantly different for zero, and it is also several times smaller in magnitude. While the issues of causality, timing, self-selection, and unobserved firm heterogeneity are not fully addressed, the findings nevertheless suggest that IT outsourcing may have significant economic consequences. Terms of use: Documents inJEL CODES: D23, D24, L14, L24.

show abstract

The Determinants of Price and Quality in Competitively Tendered Contracts

Cited by 117 publications

References 10 publications

How does competitive tendering and contracting affect satisfaction with municipal health and care services?

How does competitive tendering and contracting affect satisfaction with municipal health and care services?

Public Sector Added Value: Can Bureaucracy Deliver?

IT Outsourcing in Finnish Business

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About