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Works procurement performance is critical to successful project delivery. However, early supplier involvement (ESI) has been touted in other industries to impact procurement performance positively. Works procurement has been attracting significant attention from major players due to poor performance characterized by poor performance, budget overruns and incompetence. Hence, the purpose of this study was to assess the impact of ESI on public works procurement performance.

Based on a thorough review of the literature for a pilot survey, the main questionnaires were administered to 103 public procurement officers. To assess the impact of ESI on public works procurement performance, three constructs that served as factors for implementing ESI and five that measure works procurement performance were validated using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The outcome of this study shows a significant positive impact of ESI on works procurement performance. This included communication, trust and supplier capabilities. The study further showed that even though cost, schedule, quality, health and safety are essential, sustainability measures are also crucial for work procurement.

The results of this study could help firms make better decisions regarding public works procurement by encouraging ESI. This will likely significantly impact the successful project delivery and preservation of sustainability and efficiency objectives.

The application of PLS-SEM analysis in this study provides insights into how ESI can impact the procurement of public works in Ghana.

Though the Public Procurement Act of Ghana makes room for specific socio-economic policies (environmental, social, economic and other policies which are intended to promote social and economic impact), there is no explicit definition and provision for social value as an evaluation criterion, culminating in the absence of a definition in the Act. This paper elicits the conception and understanding of social value from stakeholders in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The study adopted a qualitative method that relied on a semi-structured interview of 30 participants purposively drawn from Western, Western North and Central regions of Ghana. An inductive thematic analysis approach, which involved identifying repetitions, exploring similarities and differences, noting linguistic connectors, and a framework were employed to analyse the data.

The study established no single definition or explanation for social value in the construction industry in Ghana. However, it was revealed from the study that the concept of social value could be defined from the functional perspective of the definer, particularly from the perspective of a Procurement Officer, Works Engineer, and a Quantity Surveyor. A new insight from the study that differs from the body of literature is that participants equated benefits derived from physically constructed projects as social value.

The study has implication for public administration and practice regarding the decision-making process in the construction industry in Ghana. It provides a vital awakening on social value as a criterion in evaluating construction works procurement in Ghana. The ability of participants to equate the benefits derived from executed construction projects as social value creates a new perspective on understanding the meaning of social value in the procurement of works construction.

The study contributes to the state-of-the-art and ongoing discourse on the concept of social value globally. The findings create an important catalyst for social value research in the Ghanaian construction industry.

The determination of the most appropriate procurement system for a capital works project is a challenging task for public sector clients considering the array of assessment criteria that are considered and the procurement methods that are available. This is particularly pertinent to the Western Australian public sector where there has been a propensity to use traditional lump sum as the default procurement solution despite knowing that the selection of an inappropriate procurement method may lead to cost and time overruns, claims, and disputes on projects. This paper aims to present a six‐step procurement method evaluation approach that requires public sector agencies to consider in detail an array of options so as to obtain value for money.

A procurement evaluation approach is developed and is examined using a focus group of 12 participants comprising a public sector client, project team and key stakeholders. The focus group was used to examine the developed approach in the context of a real‐life capital works project.

The procurement method evaluation approach was deemed to be pragmatic and enabled decision makers to re‐evaluate outcomes from previous steps in the process. All focus group participants stated the six step process enabled a recommendation that was grounded in reflection and detailed evaluation.

The developed procurement approach has enabled the public sector client to evaluate the way in which it views procurement method selection and examines how “value for money” is obtained.

The six‐step procurement approach makes use of quantitative and qualitative techniques and is reliant on discourse and reflection in making a procurement method recommendation. Consequently, the approach enables public sector clients to account for the complexities often associated with procurement selection.

The absence of effective stakeholder engagement at the early planning and implementation stages impact projects negatively. However, the role of stakeholders in Sustainable Procurement (SP) is not well recognized and as such there is limited involvement of stakeholders in sustainable procurement of public (SPP) works. This research aims to examine the barriers to stakeholder engagement in SPP works.

A survey of 104 respondents from eight procurement entities of tertiary institutions in Ghana was undertaken and validated with seven procurement experts. After satisfying all the necessary tests of reliability of the survey instrument and sample size, the data was subjected to the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to determine the critical barriers.

The study's results indicate that there are three cluster of barriers to stakeholder engagement in SPP works. They are organisational structures and knowledge driven factors, attitudinal and stakeholder fatigue and relational and information sharing processes.

This study offers relevant data for policy makers, organisations and local communities in establishing controls against barriers to stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, this research presents policy makers with recommendations to improve communication and organisational policies in enhancing stakeholder participation in SPP works in Ghana and other developing countries.

Although studies on SP has increased with time, issues such as obstacles to stakeholder engagement in SP remain unexplored. Empirical data presented in this study bridges the gap that exists on the barriers of stakeholder engagement in SPP works in the Ghana Construction Industry.

In Turkish public procurement practice of construction works, only bidders whose capabilities on each qualification criteria meet prescribed thresholds are taken into evaluation; however, final evaluation disregards contribution of contractor’s abilities to the delivery of project. The purpose of this study is to assign reasonable weights to qualification criteria stated in Public Procurement Law applicable for work contracts by the method of analytical hierarchy process (AHP) with crisp and fuzzy numbers and evaluate the results. Having optimum quality structures to obtain value for money and giving weight to environmental concern in tender evaluation stage can assist sustainable economy.

To introduce qualifications of tenderers to evaluation process, a survey was conducted among 20 public procurement specialists at Public Procurement Authority of Turkey. AHP and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) methods were used to obtain the weights for qualifications.

In any method used in the study, experience became the most important criterion after bid price. Facility, machine and equipment criterion became the second and annual turnover criterion became the third most important criterion.

The set of qualification criteria used in this study is confined by Turkish Public Procurement Law and secondary regulations. However, as Public Procurement Law is in accordance with European Union directives, the conclusions of the study should not be considered to be geographically limited by the borders of Turkey. Also, professional to take part in the survey were randomly selected from the Public Procurement Specialist working at Public Procurement Authority.

The outcomes of the study may improve sustainability through public procurement.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study offering weights for tenderer’s qualifications to be used in a multi-criteria decision-making process for contractor selection in public work procurement process in Turkey.

One of the possible systems of project delivery is design & build (D&B), which is widely used in many countries. In the Polish public procurement market, the D&B system has been applied for a relatively short time, only since 2004, and despite the possibility, so far public clients have applied the D&B system only occasionally. This paper describes the current status of using the D&B method in the public procurement sector in Poland. Five hundred and fifty eight completed public-sector projects have been subject to analysis. Items analysed include the design/builder method of award, and types and value of contracts. The results provide insights for owners, the advantages and disadvantages of the D&B system, and highlight the need to change the method of selecting the contractor for the D&B system.

Turkey transformed the public procurement procedures in year 2002 by two laws; Public Procurement Law and Public Procurement Contracts Law. This situation brought about challenges for the stakeholders from both the public sector and private sector. This paper presents an analysis of the new public procurement procedures to understand the path from the determination of the need to the signing of the contract as well as several special provisions for consultancy services, complaint reviews and statistics of the last two years.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new procurement strategy with the aim to achieve higher value for money (VFM) in public works delivery. Its main innovation lies in the possibility of optional submission of cost-efficient design variants by any interested contractor within the context of an open procedure. The final scope of works incorporates the variants approved, and all contractors are invited to submit a bid for the revised scope and budget.

This paper is a piece of applied research presenting the development of a new, cost-effective procurement strategy for public works, geared at the European Union (EU) legal framework. The strategy’s feature compilation has been based on comprehensive literature review while numerical data from a real world project were used to demonstrate its financial advantages.

The proposed strategy enables the delivery of the best value project at the lowest cost possible. This is achieved through ensuring high competition among competent contractors, improving the cost efficiency of technical solutions, discouraging future scope changes and establishing objectivity, fairness and transparency in the process of contract award.

The use of the proposed strategy results in public projects of enhanced VFM, reduced constructability issues and less scope changes during the construction stage.

The proposed strategy marks a new approach in procurement which enables the delivery of best VFM in public works. Therefore, it makes a valuable contribution towards the achievement of the overarching EU target for efficient public spending.