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This paper aims to consider the impact of the European Union procurement regulations. It assesses the impact of the re‐tendering of services on the terms and conditions of employment and sense of well being, and commitment of employees in the social care sub‐sector of the voluntary sector.

The study employs a qualitative study of three organisations utilising semi‐structured interviews with managers and employees.

The process of re‐tendering is creating intensified competition and the breakdown of co‐operation between voluntary sector organisations. Re‐tendering also has an impact on employee terms and conditions with related problems arising with regard to their morale and commitment.

This remains a relatively small‐scale piece of research and there is also scope to consider how these issues are played out in private, as well as voluntary sector organisations.

The research highlights the potential tensions between creating greater competition and a search for value for money in the tendering and re‐tendering of services on voluntary organisations' raison d'être and the sense of commitment of employees.

There is little research examining the human resource aspects of re‐tendering and this research provides an important step in surfacing a number of emergent issues for how voluntary organisations manage the people dimension of the re‐tendering process.

Discusses how a repetitive competitive bidding model, developed previously, can be adapted to the differing features of the situation. Focuses, first, on identifying the implications for decision analysis of the strategic nature of repetitive bidding and then on the impact of data to aid in winning a tender. Uses a real example from the construction industry which, for confidentiality reasons, is called Whernside Ltd. States the company is one operating a world‐wide spread of construction and development activities such as; civil engineering, private housing, property development, building, dredging, mining, mechanical engineering, foundation engineering and concrete products manufacture. Tabulates the company's turnover and profit in detail, and demonstrates that if bidding activity is to be continued, the formulation of a long‐term strategy must aim to set a perspective in the prescription of individual bids, so the long‐term accrued benefits are, in some sense, optimal. Documents the tactical bidding decision structure using figures by aid of explanation and goes into great detail by way of pinpointing the bid process. Concludes that from the discussion conclusions may be drawn and the three main ones paragraphed and spelt out with recommendations.

This paper examines the results of the first year of the new Russian state procurement law, 94-FZ, through the lens of the 88 regional government web portals created to implement it. Benchmarks are developed and applied to them, comparing results with two contemporaneous Russian studies. Almost all regions have provided core information provision functions, but other missing features and the lack of automation mean that more than half may have done little more than fulfill formal requirements. More website features do seem to correspond to more transparency, but the law and the web portals have done little so far to combat endemic, institutional corruption of the state procurement process.

The purpose of this study is to investigate and rank the critical factors influencing the bid/no bid criteria and their importance in the Australian construction industry.

The research study has been undertaken by conducting an extensive literature review on bid/no bid decision-making criteria. As a result, the researchers identified 26 most common bid/no bid decision-making criteria that are accordingly grouped into five distinct categories, namely, “project”, “market”,“contractor”, “client” and “contract”. The literature review was followed by a national survey that was designed and utilised by the researchers to collect data for this purpose. The survey was sent to potential 450 Australian construction companies in various locations and responses were received from 81 Australian construction companies. Response data were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics. Kruskal Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to detect significant differences between the mean score grouped according to the organisation size (contract value).

The descriptive and empirical analysis demonstrated a disparity of ranking of the 26 bid/no bid criteria factors among the groups; however no statistically significant differences among the 26 bid/no criteria factors despite the absolute differences in the rankings and mean scores in the following four factors: (1) “bidding condition”, (2) “strength/weaknesses”, (3) “contract payment terms” and (4) “number of competitors/bidders”. Based on the overall sample, the highly ranked four factors were “client financial capability”, “project risk”, “project future benefits and profitability” and “number of competitors/bidders”. The following were the least ranked: “contractors’ financial situation”, “project duration” and “contractors’ material availability”. “Client financial capability”and “project risk” were jointly ranked as the most important by large, whereas “client financial capability” was also rated highly for smaller Australian construction contractors (ACCs). The medium ACCs had “project risk”as highly ranked.

The majority of the participants were small construction contractors in Australia. The reason is that the researchers were not aware of the contractors’ size prior to inviting them for participation in the research study. Second, the findings may not generalise to other industries or to organisations operating in other countries.

The identified “bid/no bid criteria” increase the awareness of existing decision-making practices and play a critical role in the future decisions of the construction companies, where decision makers need to evaluate the next opportunities encountered. Furthermore, knowledge and possession of these identified “bid/no bid” criteria would enable contractors to select a project with a higher probability of success in the future, which will accordingly result in long-term financial benefits and higher performance. Finally, the awareness of these factors could contribute to changing the contractor’s behaviours when bidding in a competitive environment or market conditions.

The study contributes to the body of knowledge on tendering and bidding practices among contractors in Australia, an area previously under explored. Second, this study provides some insights on the factors influencing the bid/no bid decisions among the ACCs.

The purpose of this paper is to present an experiment to test the effect of construction demand on the mark-up price level in construction contract auctions.

An experimental approach was adopted for this study. In a controlled laboratory environment, a first-price sealed bid auction was simulated with varying number of projects available over ten rounds to simulate changing construction demand. Two experimental treatments were run in parallel, one exhibiting a “booming” demand over time, and the other group with a “recession” scenario. The experiment involved student (inexperienced) bidders with a construction project management background.

The results show that inexperienced bidders do behave differently when subjected to varying levels of construction demand. Variations in the bid price level are affected by varying levels of construction demand and the general mark-up level for the bidders experiencing a booming scenario was higher on average compared to bidders subjected to the recession scenario.

An identified limitation of this study is the use of student subjects in the experiment, thus the experiment results are limited in generalisation to inexperienced bidders. Further studies may be able to replicate the experiment with experienced industry practitioners to observe the results.

The results allow for industry practitioners to gain a stronger understanding of the effects of varying levels of construction demand and the need to consider construction demand in construction contracting. For construction clients, the level of construction demand may be used as an indicator to assist in the timing to call tenders to achieve a desirable price. For contractors, increased awareness of how demand affects competition and the price level will allow additional optimisations to be achieved in the bid price.

Construction demand has been widely known to be one of the key factors affecting contractors’ bidding decisions. However, there has been little empirical investigation of the changes in bidders’ behaviour due to varying levels of construction demand. This paper attempts to add to the empirical research knowledgebase through an experimental setting.

In order to compete successfully, international contractors need to have an understanding not only of the make‐up of the different competitive environments within each country, but also of contractors' competitive behaviour within those environments. Contractors' mark‐up decision making in public sector contracting is directly compared in two construction markets – Hong Kong and Singapore.

Regression analysis is used to compare the lowest percentage mark‐up in both markets against four mark‐up decision factors that fall into two groups – market‐environment factors (i.e. number of bidders, market conditions) and project‐specific factors (i.e. type and size of project). Data were gathered using a designed bidding experiment.

In line with de Neufville et al.'s “good year‐bad year” study, the effect of market conditions was found to be independent of the number of bidders in both markets; contractors' mark‐up decreases as the number of bidders increases, with lower mark‐up in recession. In addition, this study provides evidence that contractors' mark‐up behaviour varies in different markets: Hong Kong contractors' mark‐up behaviour is more straightforward, in that only the market‐environment factors are significant. However, Singapore contractors' mark‐up behaviour is affected by project type in addition to the market‐environment factors. Project size was not found to be significant in either market.

The empirical findings provide a valuable insight into contractors' mark‐up behaviour, especially those contractors intending to bid for jobs in these two internationally renowned construction markets.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing debate on the appropriate organizational design for the process management implementation. Using the lens of institutional theory, the paper discusses how organizations adapt to a required implementation of a process view alongside their organizational structures.

The study is designed as a single case study of a Norwegian shipping company. On the one hand, shipping companies are traditionally managed by functions due to the specifics of maritime operations and high safety-related risks of the work. On the other hand, the rising demands of regulatory bodies and customers within the offshore logistics are calling for implementation of a process view within the organizations, which implies management by processes.

The study analyses conflicting requirements of the institutional environment influencing organizational structure and how these conflicts are addressed by the company. Besides, it describes the decoupling mechanism the company uses to balance between such requirements and adapt to the changes of the institutional pressures.

The study introduces a situational-based organizational structure as an alternative for both process and vertical views implementation within the companies operating in the highly demanding institutional environments.

Because of the renewed interest in public purchasing and the strategic use of public funds under the requirements of sustainable development, the question arose once again as to how to curb the fall of institutional quality once criteria other than price are inserted into the decision-making in public purchasing. E-procurement has been repeatedly named as one of the most efficient tools to that effect and the present paper sets out to discover whether the implementation of e-procurement in a particular country per se entails also higher institutional quality, allowing for a wider implementation of green and sustainable procurement at the national, regional and municipal level without the fear of worsening the country’s institutional quality. By analyzing the implementation of e-procurement in Denmark, the Netherlands and in Portugal, this paper aims to verify the hypothesis that the implementation of e-procurement implies better institutions in terms of public purchasing. As such, the conclusions will be used in further research on the prerequisites for a successful implementation of green public procurement across the European Union.

Gathering data on institutional quality of three early e-procurement adopters (Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal) allows for comparison of institutional quality pre- and post-e-procurement implementation. By using difference-in-differences comparison the paper seeks to answer the question how doesmandatory e-procurement influence institutional quality on the national level.

The paper finds that the reform is generally associated with a relatively stronger control of corruption in the Netherlands and Denmark, while a similar reform in Portugal failed to translate into a stronger control of corruption. Furthermore, while using the quality of regulation as a dependent variable, a positive and robust effect on the quality of regulation in Denmark was shown, while the quality of reputation in the Netherlands and Portugal declined in the post-reform period, with the drop in the quality of regulation in Portugal being considerably greater, a two-fold higher amount than the estimated drop in the Netherlands. The paper suggests that in spite of the same aims, the reform yielded substantially different or even opposing effects compared to Denmark.

By examining three examples of early adopters, further research with broader impact is needed to deduce general implications for e-procurement implementation. Furthermore, implementation of e-procurement at the regional or local level can also yield distinct results.

Understanding the actual impact of e-procurement on institutional quality is indispensable for further study on the matter. The present study argues that e-procurement needs to be accompanied by additional measures or variables to yield a positive impact on institutional quality in public procurement.

As to originality, the present paper uses a law and economics approach, originating or better said drawing motivation from green public procurement concerns, trying to provide an insight in terms of tools that can be used to eliminate concerns regarding institutional quality when implementing green public procurement practices.

Winning a bid will carry implications for capacity level of a construction firm. This paper aims to examine the impact of a winning bid on contractors' bid pricing strategies.

In identifying the specific types of bidding trends before and after a winning bid, the variations in bids are expressed as a function of time relative to winning bid – the “event” of interest in this study – using a piecewise mixed effects model. The bids analysed comprised series of bids with a winning bid in between, recorded from Hong Kong building contractors.

The results show that there is a relationship between bid price and bidding success. The bidders in general bid low for time periods before a winning bid and they are less competitive in time periods after a winning bid. However, by considering the individual bidders' characteristics that relate to differences in bidding competitiveness, it is shown that there is remarkable heterogeneity among the bidders in bid pricing decision for pre‐ and post‐winning periods. Nevertheless, the statistically significant bidding trends before and after a winning bid strengthen the notion that systematic changes in bidding behaviour over time do occur in reality in response to changes in firm capacity level.

This empirical investigation provides strong evidence on the systematic changes in bidding behaviour over time in response to changes in firm capacity level, supporting the need to incorporate firm capacity level in the future development of a suitable theoretical framework on construction bidding.

In the traditional setting of a tender procedure on infrastructure in the Netherlands, the procedure starts after the public decision-making procedure has been completed. In recent years, however, the Department of Transport and Water Management has considered advancing the start of the tender procedure in relation to the start of the planning procedure by interweaving both procedures. The possibilities and added values of this market approach have been researched in this paper. Added value has been found in the area of utilisation of knowledge, innovation and creativity of the market, thus gaining time and obtaining a more business-like character of the planning procedure. Solutions are proposed for impediments concerning disclosure versus confidentiality, adapting tender conditions and award criteria, (re)using market party ideas and procedure period.