Exploring private tendering processes for possible benefits in the public sector tendering process

Abstract

In the last decade the building industry in the Netherlands has received a lot of attention and has been the subject of high level media attention, particularly with respect to contracting out public works to private contractors and their efficiency and performance. Not only in the Netherlands, but in most countries too, nowadays, contractor evaluation and selection is a difficult task with many uncertainties and complexities. It is hard to decide what the most important factors are that influence the decision making in choosing the contractors. Holt (1994) and Jennings (1998) consider reputation and experience as critical factors where Singh (2006) refers to one single criterion as price or quality. Only one article (Watt, 2009) gives an overview on how clients actually choose their contractors based on a five question survey. In The Netherlands, the region of South Limburg, wants to gain insight in the tendering processes (ANP, 2009; Fascotte, 2009; Dohmen, 1996). Goal of this research in municipal tendering processes in the public construction sector and the (practical) execution from this is to gain insight in the tendering process, organising and financial aspects of this process. It serves as a motivation for this paper