Critical factors that influence e-procurement implementation success in the public sector
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-06-01-02-2006-B004 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| Pages | 70-99 |
| Author | Kishor Vaidya,A. S. M. Sajeev,Guy Callender |
| Subject Matter | Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management,Government,Economics,Public Finance/economics,Texation/public revenue |
JOURNAL OF PUBLIC PROCUREMENT, VOLUME 6, ISSUES 1 & 3, 70-99 2006
CRITICAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE E-PROCUREMENT
IMPLEMENTATION SUCCESS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
Kishor Vaidya, A. S. M. Sajeev and Guy Callender*
ABSTRACT. This paper presents the results of a literature survey
developed to support a proposed model of the Critical Success Factors
(CSFs) likely to impact the success of e-Procurement initiatives in the
public sector. It identifies a number of relevant variables for each CSF and
presents a model for future research. It also analyses the relative importance
of different CSFs and observes that organization and management factors
are the most important category for success of e-Procurement initiatives. If
e-Procurement initiatives in the public sector are to assist the development
of e-Procurement across the information economy, there should be wider
discussion and agreement on what constitutes the relevant CSFs and how
the achievement of success can be assessed.
INTRODUCTION
A number of public sector agencies worldwide have identified
Electronic Procurement (e-Procurement) as a priority e-Government
agenda and have implemented or are in the process of implementing buy-
side e-Procurement systems. However, the scholarly evaluation of e-
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* K. Vaidya and A.S.M. Sajeev, Ph.D, are Ph.D. Candidate and Professor and
Chair of IT and Computer Science, respectively, School of Mathematics,
Statistics and Computer Science, University of New England, Australia. Mr
Vaidya’s research interests are in the domains of adoption, implementation,
performance measurement of e-Commerce innovations, and public procurement.
Dr. Sajeev’s research interests are in the areas of Software Engineering and
Web Engineering. Dr. Callender is Foundation Professor and Chair of
Leadership of Strategic Procurement and, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of
Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, Curtin University of
Technology, Australia. His research interests are procurement, the supply
chain, supply market intelligence, and commercial history.
Copyright © 2006 by PrAcademics Press
CRITICAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE E-PROCUREMENT IMPLEMENTATION SUCCESS 71
Procurement initiatives, especially in relation to the use of Critical
Success Factors (CSFs) in e-Procurement is very limited (Birks, Bond &
Radford, 2001; DOF, 2001; CGEC, 2002; ECOM, 2002). A review of e-
Procurement literature, primarily from the last five years, shows a lack of
core constructs around CSFs. The reason for this might be that
implementation of e-Procurement initiatives in the public sector is still in
the early stages. Tonkin (2003) argues there was little history of
extensive use of e-Procurement in the public sector and, therefore, the
academic literature covering early public sector adoption of e-
Procurement is limited. This paper will assess the CSFs that are likely to
influence the success of e-Procurement initiatives in the public sector.
The main overall objectives of the paper are to gain an exploratory
understanding of e-Procurement issues in the public sector; to develop a
conceptual framework that aids in identification of critical success
factors for adopting and implementing e-Procurement in the public
sector; and to stimulate debate about the e-Procurement CSFs and the
associated measures for success.
Through a survey of the e-Procurement literature, this paper
identifies eleven factors: end-user uptake and training, supplier adoption,
compliance with best practices for business case/project management,
systems integration, security and authentication, re-engineering the
process, top management support, performance measurement, change
management, e-Procurement implementation strategy, and technological
standards. In the following sections, this paper discusses the background,
requirements, and the barriers to e-Procurement implementation in the
public sector. Following the methodological approach, each CSF is
discussed in detail and a research model is presented. Finally, an analysis
of the relative importance of the CSFs is presented and the paper
concluded with a discussion on the differences and similarities of e-
Procurement projects compared with traditional IT projects in the public
sector.
BACKGROUND
What is e-Procurement? Confusion exists in defining the term e-
Procurement (Vaidya, Yu, Soar & Turner, 2003). While the terms “e-
Procurement” and “e-Purchasing” have been used synonymously in
many jurisdictions in an attempt to prove their involvement in the e-
Commerce revolution (MacManus, 2002), the term “purchasing” has a
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