Motivating Acceptance of Information and Communication Technologies in Rural Agribusiness: It’s Not the Money!

The study investigates the key motivational driver(s) for the acceptance of a digital procurement (e-purjee) system by sugarcane growers in rural Bangladesh. The e-purjee system is a simple SMS-based purchase order system that replaces a paper-based procurement order system. Treating the acceptance of the e-purjee system as the sugarcane growers‟ decision problem, and applying a multi-criteria decision making (Zionts & Wallenius, 1976) approach to that problem, the study identifies the trade-offs growers appear to make between non-monetary and monetary decision criteria. The study draws on interviews with local growers to reveal their preferences and their reasoning. The findings indicate that non-monetary incentives, namely procedural fairness and uncertainty reduction, are more important than the positive monetary benefits. Interview responses also suggest that the non-monetary benefits affect small scale growers more than the large scale growers. Based on these findings, we draw several practical and theoretical recommendations about the structuring of incentive systems for rural technology based development projects, and about decision modeling for a relatively untrained informant group

An integrated framework to assess financial reward systems in construction projects

Motivation is a major driver of project performance. Despite team member ability to deliver successful project outcomes if they are not positively motivated to pursue joint project goals, then performance will be constrained. One approach to improving the motivation of project organizations is by offering a financial reward for the achievement of set performance standards above a minimum required level. However, little investigation has been undertaken into the features of successful incentive systems as a part of an overall delivery strategy. With input from organizational management literature, and drawing on the literature covering psychological and economic theories of motivation, this paper presents an integrated framework that can be used by project organizations to assess the impact of financial reward systems on motivation in construction projects. The integrated framework offers four motivation indicators which reflect key theoretical concepts across both psychological and economic disciplines. The indicators are: (1) Goal Commitment, (2) Distributive Justice, (3) Procedural Justice, and (4) Reciprocity. The paper also interprets the integrated framework against the results of a successful Australian social infrastructure project case study and identifies key learning’s for project organizations to consider when designing financial reward systems. Case study results suggest that motivation directed towards the achievement of incentive goals is influenced not only by the value placed on the financial reward for commercial benefit, but also driven by the strength of the project initiatives that encourage just and fair dealings, supporting the establishment of trust and positive reciprocal behavior across a project team. The strength of the project relationships was found to be influenced by how attractive the achievement of the goal is to the incentive recipient and how likely they were to push for the achievement of the goal. Interestingly, findings also suggested that contractor motivation is also influenced by the fairness of the performance measurement process and their perception of the trustworthiness and transparency of their client. These findings provide the basis for future research on the impact of financial reward systems on motivation in construction projects. It is anticipated that such research will shed new light on this complex topic and further define how reward systems should be designed to promote project team motivation. Due to the unique nature of construction projects with high levels of task complexity and interdependence, results are expected to vary in comparison to previous studies based on individuals or single-entity organizations

Construction contract policy: do we mean what we say?

Recent developments in contracting practice in the UK have built upon recommendations contained in highprofile reports, such as those by Latham and Egan. However, the New Engineering Contract (NEC), endorsed by Latham, is based upon principles of contract drafting that seem open to question. Any contract operates in the context of its legislative environment and current working practices. This report identifies eight contentious hypotheses in the literature on construction contracts and tests their validity in a sample survey that attracted 190 responses. The survey shows, among other things, that while partnership is a positive and useful idea, authoritative contract management is considered more effective and that “win-win” contracts, while desirable, are basically impractical. Further, precision and fairness in contracts are not easy to achieve simultaneously. While participants should know what is in their contracts, they should not routinely resort to legal action; and standard-form contracts should not seek to be universally applicable. Fundamental changes to drafting policy should be undertaken within the context of current legal contract doctrine and with a sensitivity to the way that contracts are used in contemporary practice. Attitudes to construction contracting may seem to be changing on the surface, but detailed analysis of what lies behind apparent agreement on new ways of working reveals that attitudes are changing much more slowly than they appear to be

Providing organic school food for youths in Europe - Policy strategies, certification and supply chain management in Denmark, Finland, Italy and Norway

In the proceedings of an iPOPY seminar, some results of the research project were presented. First of all, Anne-Kristin Løes and Benjamin Nölting give an overview of the iPOPY project and its first results. This outline of the holistic research approach helps locate the challenges of the supply side of POPY, some crucial aspects of which are analyzed in the following papers. Political strategies are highly relevant for changing the “politicized market” of public food procurement. Thorkild Nielsen, Niels Heine Kristensen and Bent Egbert Mikkelsen reflect on whether and how organic food in schools and kindergartens can be described as a part of an ecological modernization strategy in Denmark. They discuss how it has merged with more economically and technically approach in public catering policy. Organic production has to be certified and labeled along the supply chain in order to maintain trust in organic premium products. Since January 1st 2009, organic certification in Europe is subject to the new Council Regulation (EC) No 834/2007 of 28 June 2007. This regulation specifically excludes so-called mass catering operations. It is up to EU member states to apply national rules or private standards insofar as these comply with community law. The paper of Carola Strassner presents the state of the art and upcoming changes of organic certification of out-of-home catering in Germany with regard to Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Italy. Finally, supply chains of organic school food have to be organised in a sustainable way in order to serve high quality food to pupils. Stefano Bocchi, Roberto Spigarolo, Marco Valerio Sarti, and Benjamin Nölting present a best practice case of controlled food chains (filiera controllata) from Italy, the European champion of organic school food. From the province and the city of Piacenza in the region of Emilia-Romagna, we can learn a lot about a short and certified organic food-chain, a wide range of regional and organic products provided through a shared logistic organisation among local partners, and specific tender procedures

Moderating claims and disputes through collaborative procurement

Purpose: Following the global financial crisis in 2008, the construction sector in UAE has been facing emergent criticisms for growing adversarial culture and rising prevalent claims and disputes between stakeholders. The complex, large size and fast track nature of construction projects in UAE, make project management very challenging under the commonly used traditional procurement routes. This paper aspires to examine whether implementing collaborative procurement approaches can facilitate resolving the escalating number of claims and disputes in the UAE construction industry. Design/methodology/approach: Considering the nature of the study, a quantitative method was selected to realize the research objectives. The questionnaire was uploaded using online survey facility and distributed through e-mails and professional networks. The questionnaire was piloted with experts to assess whether the questions are unambiguous, easy to respond and intelligible. The feedbacks received were mostly positive with few comments and recommendations. The pilot responses were incorporated and the questionnaire was modified before the final sending out. The questionnaire survey consisted of six main sections to fulfill the research objectives. Findings: Around three-quarters of the experts believe that the relationship is adversarial, with lack of trust, win-lose attitude, with dismissive and opportunistic behavior. The survey reveals that the top causes of claims and disputes comprise: (a) variations due to clients initiated change requests; (b) contractors selection on low bid only rather than including quality and performance considerations; and (c) unfair risk allocation where majority of risks are transferred to contractors. The findings also identify eight collaborative practices which have crucial positive impact such as: (1) early identification of problems; (2) better communication; (3) enhanced trust and teamwork. Originality/value: This research contributes to the enhancement of the management of claims and disputes for construction projects, which encompasses: (a) the key characteristics of collaborative arrangements to improve the adversarial construction culture comprise: mutual respect, openness, fairness and non-opportunistic behaviours; (b) the foremost roles of collaborative procurement in reducing claims and disputes embrace: early identification and resolution of problems, enhanced trust and teamwork spirit, improved relationships and better quality communication; (c) the major practical barriers of implementing collaborative approaches incorporate: lack of awareness of their benefits, primitive legal framework of partnering arrangements, lack of transparency in procurement processes

State of the art of the project “innovative Public Organic food Procurement for Youth” (iPOPY)

The paper is part of the proceedings of an iPOPY seminar. The authors give an overview of the iPOPY project and its first results. This outline of the holistic research approach helps locate the challenges of the supply side of public organic food procurement for youth

The ‘transaction X-ray’: understanding construction procurement

This paper presents the results of a case study, the Construction Case, which examines procurement practices within the UK construction supply chain and compares these with a more general UK sample taken from non-construction sectors. Using a qualitative methodology, the approaches to relationship management and buyer value perception are graphically mapped, using an innovative ‘transaction X-ray’ technique. The Construction Case considers procurement transactions conducted at various points along the construction value chain: the client, the construction firm and the specialist contractor. Recognising that the research design favours a small sample size, and thus limits generalisability beyond the boundaries of the case, the paper finds that construction industry procurement operates in an adversarial and largely arm’s-length manner. While procurement practice is found to share common aspects with other industrial sectors, the case demonstrates that the construction industry is more adversarial and less collaborative than is the average found across the other sectors examined. The paper outlines a useful framework whereby construction practitioners can evaluate elements of procurement practice within their own organisations, and also signposts the required direction for future research in order to reflect the gap, suggested by the case, between current normative theory and construction procurement practice

Cooperative purchasing within the United Nations

To support cooperative purchasing within the United Nations we carried out an empirical study in 2004, mainly to define cooperation forms, and to identify and rank motives and critical factors for cooperation. Important reasons to work together turn out to be lower prices and transaction costs, sharing information, and learning. Reasons not to work together are i.e. lack of opportunity or priority to purchase cooperatively. Most of the literature in the area of critical factors focuses on factors such as trust and support. Based on our study, we also emphasize the importance of choosing the right products and services. Furthermore, we observe what we call the hitchhikers’ dilemma. This dilemma deals with small agencies hitchhiking on contracts from large agencies. For large agen-cies there may be no incentive to allow hitchhiking. For small agencies hitchhiking can be very interesting though. Possible solutions to this problem are savings allocation mechanisms. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research