The Dilemma of Public Procurement. How interactions between public and private institutions unfold in practice

Abstract

Abstract: Public-private partnerships are growing in importance, popularity and number as an attempt from the governments to cope with globalization pressures and are seen as a product of the New Public Management. The study focuses on the public procurement process where organizations from the public and private sectors are required to collaborate. Drawing on evidences from a case study of a public procurement of clinical nutrition products in Sweden, the study sheds light on the complexities that tend to emerge when two types of institutions interact. The concept of institution should be understood from the sociological perspective and defined as an organized and established way of acting embedded in a legal entity. The study is anchored in neo-institutional theories and the interactions between the institutions are understood through the concept of logic of appropriateness as opposed to the logic of consequentiality, developed by March and Olsen (1989). The study shows first that both logics coexist within each institution all along the procurement process, which has resulted in dependencies between the institutions. Second, the study underscores the problematic of conflicting identities that lie in the decision-maker, which has not much been addressed in the neo-institutional literature. It concludes with a discussion of the dilemma in the context of public procurement between the need for clearer rules while at the same time urging for more flexibility as regards the interactions between the private and public actors.