Journal of Public Procurement

Leasing As a Strategic Financing Option: The Navy's Maritime Prepositioned Ships Experience

Recently, leasing has been prominent in the press due to the Air Force's recent ill-fated attempt to obtain the use of Boeing re-fueling tankers. Forgotten is that, in the early 1980's, a highly controversial Navy long-term leasing program of Maritime Prepositioned Ships had a different result. However, an unintended consequence of the Navy's success was that future government leases were practically eliminated. This research examines the issues and parties involved in this unprecedented crea...

A Brief History and Review of Purchasing Card Use by the U.S. Government: 1990-2005

After fifteen years of use by U.S. Federal government agencies, purchase cards are still caught in a debate between the drive to improve governmental efficiency and the need to prudently manage and control spending of taxpayer resources. This paper gives decision makers facts by which to evaluate the purchase card experience to date by providing a brief history of legislative actions related to purchase cards, analyzing patterns of purchase card spending by Federal government agencies, estima...

Procurement Process Maturity: Key to Performance Measurement

Performance measurement has been receiving increased attention in public organizations. As performance measurement systems begin to take on a central focus by public sector organizations, the challenges of measuring and improving critical organizational processes continue to increase in importance. Furthermore, as the procurement process continues to gain critical importance in public sector organizations, the need to apply specific performance measurement methods to measure and improve the p...

Toward a Framework for Managing High-Risk Government Outsourcing: Field Research in Three Italian Municipalities

Many public sector organizations use outsourcing in an effort to take advantage of a private contractor's experience and economies of scale, thereby allowing them to provide high quality public services at a low cost. Although it has received considerable attention in the public policy and management literature for almost three decades, outsourcing has not always achieved a municipality's goals. To address the strategic and managerial issues of outsourcing, we combine a literature review with...

Current Trends of Outsourcing Practice in Government and Business: Causes, Case Studies and Logic

The subject of outsourcing, A-76 studies and strategic sourcing are familiar terms in government and business. What lies behind the development of increasing activity in this area is an organizational field that legitimizes and perpetuates such activities. Justifications are provided in terms of cost savings, improved services and thereby, value to stakeholders. The following article provides examples of "field structuration" that contribute to the perpetuation of these forms of procurement p...

Contracting Officers: Turn Off the Time and Material Default Switch

This article addresses the increased use of time and material contracts. It explores the reasons and risks of this contract type's use. Also, it makes several suggestions to pursue alternate contract types when appropriate.