City governments increasingly experiment with civic participation in the procurement and the realization of smart city technologies in order to improve the incorporation of human values. In this paper, a model is proposed with the level of participation, the continuity of participation and the extent of institutional embedding to illustrate how challenging these experiments are. The City of Amsterdam also experiments with its procurement approach for a new camera car service that ensures an ethically responsible, privacy-friendly and secure collection of images from public space. Two starting points drive this change: 1) in order to have more control over the data, the municipality develops its own machine learning models for processing the images and 2) a multi-stakeholder co-design project including a citizen panel – is an integral part of the process in which the service is designed and realized. To support this new procurement process, a group of design-researchers were involved in a collaborative case study to identify requirements relevant for the tender. An analysis of the case study findings along the three dimensions brings us to the conclusion that the approach developed by the City of Amsterdam is a fruitful encounter between ‘doing ethics’ and procurement. The lessons of this procurement approach for ‘doing ethics’ are claimed to be of value for other practical contexts and further research.
This paper provides guidance for developing risk-based management tools to improve the procurement (purchasing) performance of SMEs. Extant academic literature only offers little support on developing such tools and does not consider the wide variety of SMEs. The paper defines a procurement tool for SMEs as any structured managerial aid that one or more persons use for analysing, structuring or influencing the management and effective execution of activities within SME procurement processes. In the context of this research such tools are directed at identifying risks or uncertainties in procurement processes and at improving such processes through effective analysis and decision-making. The paper draws from SME and entrepreneurial literature related to strategy, sustainability, innovation or risk management, and from literature related to procurement management and maturity grids.It discusses literature on developing management tools and criteria on assessing the quality of such tools. It discusses key aspects and organisational variables related to the application and adoption of such tools. It then presents a five-step instrument with guidelines and criteria to develop risk-based procurement management tools for entrepreneurs and SMEs. These guidelines are described as to be used in action research with student researchers and company research participants.
The COVID19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in supply chain networks in the healthcare sector and the tremendous waste problem of disposable healthcare products, such as isolation gowns. Single-use disposable isolation gowns cause great ecological impact. Reusable gowns can potentially reduce climate impacts and improve the resilience of healthcare systems by ensuring a steady supply in times of high demand. However, scaling reusable, circular isolation gowns in healthcare organizations is not straightforward. It is impeded by economic barriers – such as servicing costs for each use – and logistic and hygiene barriers, as processes for transport, storage and safety need to be (re)designed. Healthcare professionals (e.g. purchasing managers) lack complete information about social, economic and ecological costs, the true cost of products, to make informed circular purchasing decisions. Additionally, the residual value of materials recovered from circular products is overlooked and should be factored into purchasing decisions. To facilitate the transition to circular procurement in healthcare, purchasing managers need more fine-grained, dynamic information on true costs. Our RAAK Publiek proposal (MODLI) addresses a problem that purchasing managers face – making purchasing decisions that factor in social, economic and ecological costs and future benefits from recovered materials. Building on an existing consortium that developed a reusable and recyclable isolation gown, we design and develop an open-source decision-support tool to inform circular procurement in healthcare organizations and simulate various purchasing options of non-circular and circular products, including products from circular cascades. Circular procurement is considered a key driver in the transition to a circular economy as it contributes to closing energy and material loops and minimizes negative impacts and waste throughout entire product lifecycles. MODLI aims to support circular procurement policies in healthcare organizations by providing dynamic information for circular procurement decision making.
De doelstelling van dit project is om Nederlandse sociale MKB-bedrijven te helpen bij het verkrijgen van (meer/betere) opdrachten in aanbestedingstrajecten, juist op basis van de social impact die deze bedrijven maken (impact op de samenleving, bijvoorbeeld door de arbeidsparticipatie van mensen met een afstand tot de arbeidsmarkt te stimuleren). Tegelijkertijd beogen we aanbestedende diensten te helpen social impact beter mee te nemen als positieve factor in aanbestedingen. We gaan een vergelijking maken tussen Nederland en België, waar een aparte rechtsvorm voor sociale ondernemingen bestaat (i.t.t. in NL), en dezelfde Europese aanbestedingsrichtlijn geldt. We willen vooral meer inzicht krijgen in de manier waarop sociale ondernemingen in beide landen hun social impact gebruiken om (meer/betere) opdrachten te krijgen; en de manier waarop aanbestedende diensten in beide landen social impact in opdrachtverstrekking en voorkeursbeleid voor sociale ondernemingen verwerken. Naast dossieronderzoek gaan we interviews houden met sociale ondernemingen, aanbestedende diensten en adviesbureaus op het terrein van aanbesteden en social impact. Bij de uitvoering van het onderzoek worden studenten van de opleidingen HBO Rechten en SJD ingezet, in het kader van de minor Bedrijfsjurist en afstuderen. De opgedane kennis wordt o.a. ingebracht bij de (door)ontwikkeling van de Innovatiewerkplaats ‘Krachtig MKB’. Deze postdoc aanvraag wordt ingediend vanuit het Marian van Os Centrum voor Ondernemerschap (MvOCvO) van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen (HG) en sluit aan bij eerder onderzoek van dit centrum. Ondernemerschap is één van de drie speerpunten van de HG. Sociaal Ondernemerschap is als thema in de Roadmap en de onderzoeksvisie van het MvOCvO opgenomen; het sluit aan bij de HBO-onderzoeksagenda Onderzoek met impact en bovendien draagt het bij aan de belangrijkste doelstellingen van de Noordelijke Innovatie Agenda. Van de 14 lectoraten binnen het MvOCvO zijn er zes direct betrokken bij het thema sociaal ondernemerschap, als mede-penvoerder van een projectaanvraag, of als kennispartner.
