Advancing the practice of public procurement performance measurement: a framework for conceptualizing efficiency and effectiveness

IMPACT

This article provides a conceptual, applied framework for public procurement performance measurement. A reimagined systems–theoretical approach reveals a conceptual model by which public managers and policy-makers can understand their current public procurement key performance indicators (KPIs). Focusing on distinctions between the public and private appreciation of efficiency and effectiveness, the model was applied to three European Single Market Scoreboard public procurement KPIs to illustrate where measures tend to fail. Implications from an empirical analysis of aggregated contract notice and award data suggest public procurement performance measures are symbolic indicants rather than true measures of performance unless normalized across the appropriate unit of analysis which are heterogeneous and, in the case of multilevel governance, often have different procurement goals and policy priorities. The model identifies the theoretical challenges facing the metrics used to assess the performance of procurement systems, while acknowledging that, in practice, these metrics may not always be used in isolation for assessment. Recommendations for practice and generalizability across various government regimes and public KPIs are provided.

ABSTRACT

Performance measurement has a fraught history regarding its theoretical and practical relevancy, yet public institutions continue to rely on indicators to assess their processes. Within government contracting, this duality yields an important question for New Public Management paradigms: as opposed to the private sector, how can scholars and practitioners gauge the efficiency and effectiveness of their public procurement systems through performance measurement? To answer this question, a theoretical framework is applied to a critical analysis of measures currently used in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Contracting
• Empirical Descriptivism
• European Union
• Performance Measurement
• Public Management
• Public Procurement
• Single Market Scoreboard
• Systems Theory

Data availability

Please reference the publicly available Tenders Electronic Daily dataset available at https://ted.europa.eu/TED/main/HomePage.do

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emily Boykin

Emily Boykin is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University, USA.

Ryan J. Lofaro

Ryan J. Lofaro is an assistant professor in the Department of Public and Nonprofit Studies at Georgia Southern University, USA.

Clifford McCue

Clifford McCue is a tenured professor in the School of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University, USA.

Eric Prier

Eric Prier is a tenured professor in the Department of Political Science at Florida Atlantic University, USA.