Глава в “Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance”

Наряду с ведущими международными исследователями участие в работе над энциклопедией приняли сотрудники ИАПР Андрей Яковлев, Андрей Ткаченко и Юлия Родионова, которые подготовили раздел “Opportunistic Behavior in Public Procurement”.

This chapter presents a methodological approach for detecting potential opportunism by counterparts that are linked with agents through contractual relations. Meanwhile, the chapter does not consider the situation of changing the rules by reforming the public procurement system. This is not a task for a single, even large, organization and should be addressed by the collective effort of many organizations or the government. The authors instead focus on what a principal should do in a situation in which the existing system of rules is inadequate, and she cannot change it. 

In this case, the authors suggest using a counterpart survey as an alternative source of information for the principal. The methodology proposes to ask counterparts about the attitude to some undesirable behavior of the agent from the principal and benevolent counteragent perspective. The findings of previous studies show that the systematic distortion of information is one of the indicators of opportunism. Therefore, the authors can identify the potential opportunism of counterparts based on the intensity of their justification of such behavior along with unrealistic assessments of existing problems. By following those counterparts’ contractual relations, the proposed approach allows to further indirectly indicate the potential opportunism of the agent related to these counterparts. 

The practical implication is that this methodological approach makes it possible to take into account the objective heterogeneity of suppliers when developing measures to improve the public procurement system. Therefore, the presented methodology may be applied in other spheres of public administration, where public bodies or large state-owned enterprises interact with counterparts on a competitive base and are vulnerable to corruption and opportunistic behavior.

Opportunistic Behavior in Public Procurement (PDF, 127 Кб)