Bidding for Complex Projects: Evidence From the Acquisitions of IT Services

Competitive bidding (as auctions) is commonly used to procure goods and services. Public buyers are often mandated by law to adopt competitive procedures to ensure transparency and promote full competition. Recent theoretical literature, however, suggests that open competition can perform poorly in allocating complex projects. In exploring the determinants of suppliers’ bidding behavior in procurement auctions for complex IT services, we find results that are consistent with theory. We find that price and quality do not exhibit the classical tradeoff one would expect: quite surprisingly, high quality is associated to low prices. Furthermore, while quality is mainly driven by suppliers’ experience, price is affected more by the scoring rule and by the level of expected competition. These results might suggest that (scoring) auctions fail to appropriately incorporate buyers’ complex price/quality preferences in the tender design.Procurement Auctions, Scoring Rules, IT Contracts, Price/Quality Ratio

Electronic Reverse Auctions: Spawning Procurement Innovation in the Context of Arab Culture

Government e-procurement initiatives have the potential to transform local institutions, but few studies have been published of strategies for implementing specific e-procurement tools, particularly involving procurement by a foreign government adapting to local culture in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA). This case describes procurement at a forward operating base (FOB) in Kuwait in support of operations in Iraq. The government procurers had to deal with a phenomenon unique to the MENA region: wasta. Wasta is a form of social capital that bestows power, influence, and connection to those who possess it, similar to guanxi in China. This study explores the value proposition and limitations of electronic reverse auctions (eRA) with the purpose of sharing best practices and lessons learned for government procurement in a MENA country. The public value framework provides valuable theoretical insights for the implementation of a new government e-procurement tool in a foreign country. In a culture dominated by wasta, the suppliers enjoyed the transparency and merit-based virtues of eRA’s that transferred successfully into the new cultural milieu: potential to increase transparency, competition, efficiency, and taxpayer savings. The practices provided herein are designed specifically to help buyers overcome structural barriers including training, organizational inertia, and a lack of eRA policy and guidance while implementing a new e-procurement tool in a foreign country

Costly Bidding in Online Markets for IT Services

Internet-enabled markets are becoming viable venues for procurement of professional services. We investigate bidding behavior within the most active area of these early knowledge markets—the market for software development. These markets are important both because they provide an early view of the effectiveness of online service markets and because they have a potentially large impact on how software development services are procured and provided. Using auction theory, we develop a theoretical model that relates market characteristics to bidding and transaction behavior, taking into account costly bidding. We then test our model using data from an active online market for software development services, which yields contracts for 30%–40% of posted projects. In its current format, however, the studied market may induce excessive bidding by vendors. Consistent with our theoretical predictions and those of Carr (2003), higher-value projects attract significantly more bids, with lower average quality. Greater numbers of bids raise the cost to all participants, due to costly bidding and bid evaluation. Perhaps as a consequence, higher-value projects are also much less likely to be awarded

An Investigation Report on Auction Mechanism Design

Auctions are markets with strict regulations governing the information available to traders in the market and the possible actions they can take. Since well designed auctions achieve desirable economic outcomes, they have been widely used in solving real-world optimization problems, and in structuring stock or futures exchanges. Auctions also provide a very valuable testing-ground for economic theory, and they play an important role in computer-based control systems. Auction mechanism design aims to manipulate the rules of an auction in order to achieve specific goals. Economists traditionally use mathematical methods, mainly game theory, to analyze auctions and design new auction forms. However, due to the high complexity of auctions, the mathematical models are typically simplified to obtain results, and this makes it difficult to apply results derived from such models to market environments in the real world. As a result, researchers are turning to empirical approaches. This report aims to survey the theoretical and empirical approaches to designing auction mechanisms and trading strategies with more weights on empirical ones, and build the foundation for further research in the field

A Note on the Equivalence of Rationalizability Concepts in Generalized Nice Games

Moulin (1984) describes the class of nice games for which the solution concept of point-rationalizability coincides with iterated elimination of strongly dominated strategies. As a consequence nice games have the desirable property that all rationalizability concepts determine the same strategic solution. However, nice games are characterized by rather strong assumptions. For example, only single-valued best responses are admitted and the individual strategy sets have to be convex and compact subsets of the real line R1. This note shows that equivalence of all rationalizability concepts can be extended to multi-valued best response correspondences. The surprising finding is that equivalence does not hold for individual strategy sets that are compact and convex subsets of Rn with n>1.

Risks, Controls and Business Value of IT-Enabled Interfirm and Intrafirm Processes

There have been significant advances in the information systems (IS) literature about the business value that can be realized through information technology (IT) investments and the mechanisms through which IT creates different facets of business value. We identify three important gaps in understanding the literature on IT business value. First, it is unclear how risk arising from deficiencies in a firm’s information environment, along with internal and external contextual factors, affects a firm’s IT implementation choices. Second, it is unclear how IT resources in a focal domain need to be combined with knowledge resources in the same domain and IT resources in other domains to develop process capabilities and create process-level benefits. Third, it is unclear what risks IT-enabled process innovations create for different process stakeholders and what controls can be applied to mitigate these risks. My dissertation addresses the above three gaps in three essays. The first essay examines the influence of a firm’s information risk on its prioritization of accounting enterprise systems (AES) relative to complementary enterprise systems and the moderation of this relationship by the weaknesses of internal controls and environmental uncertainty characteristics. The second essay focuses on the impact of AES implementation on a firm’s internal controls process, and the complementary roles of managerial competence and enterprise systems implemented in other domains related to the internal controls process of the firm. The final essay explores the risk factors that can arise for buyers and suppliers due to the use of reverse auctions, and the controls that can be applied to mitigate the key risk factors. In terms of research methods, the first two essays apply econometric analysis to panel datasets constructed from multiple sources and the third essay uses a combination of Delphi studies and semi-structured interviews. Collectively, the essays advance our understanding of (1) the factors underlying a firm’s prioritization of IT investment choices; (2) the mechanisms through which IT resources, in combination with human expertise, create business value; and (3) the risks introduced for different stakeholders by the adoption of IT-enabled process innovations and the controls that can be used to effectively mitigate them

Estimating the number of new and repeated bidders in construction auctions

The number of new bidders – bidders from whom there is no previous registered participation – is an important variable in most bid tender forecasting models, since the unknown competitive profile of the former strongly limits the predictive accuracy of the latter. Analogously, when a bidder considers entering a bid or when an auctioneer is handling a procurement auction, assessing the likely proportion of experienced bidders is considered an important aspect, as some strategic decisions or even the awarding criteria might differ. However, estimating the number of bidders in a future auction that have not submitted a single bid yet is difficult, since there is no data at all linking their potential participation, an essential requirement for the implementation of any forecasting or estimation method. A practical approach is derived for determining the expected proportion of new bidders to frequent bidders as a function of the population of potential bidders. A multinomial model useful for selective and open tendering is proposed and its performance is validated with a dataset of actual construction auctions. Final remarks concern the valuable information provided by the model to an enduring unsolved bidding problem and the prospects for new research continuations

Spectrum auctions: designing markets to benefit the public, industry and the economy

Access to the radio spectrum is vital for modern digital communication. It is an essential component for smartphone capabilities, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and multiple other new technologies. Governments use spectrum auctions to decide which companies should use what parts of the radio spectrum. Successful auctions can fuel rapid innovation in products and services, unlock substantial economic benefits, build comparative advantage across all regions, and create billions of dollars of government revenues. Poor auction strategies can leave bandwidth unsold and delay innovation, sell national assets to firms too cheaply, or create uncompetitive markets with high mobile prices and patchy coverage that stifles economic growth. Corporate bidders regularly complain that auctions raise their costs, while government critics argue that insufficient revenues are raised. The cross-national record shows many examples of both highly successful auctions and miserable failures. Drawing on experience from the UK and other countries, senior regulator Geoffrey Myers explains how to optimise the regulatory design of auctions, from initial planning to final implementation. Spectrum Auctions offers unrivalled expertise for regulators and economists engaged in practical auction design or company executives planning bidding strategies. For applied economists, teachers, and advanced students this book provides unrivalled insights in market design and public management. Providing clear analytical frameworks, case studies of auctions, and stage-by-stage advice, it is essential reading for anyone interested in designing public-interested and successful spectrum auctions

Electronic business and electronic commerce (supporting lecture notes for students of dirеction "Management" of all forms of education)

E-Business systems naturally have greater security risks than traditional business systems, therefore it is important for e-business systems to be fully protected against these risks. Customers, suppliers, employees, and numerous other people use any particular e-business system daily and expect their confidential information to stay secure. Hackers are one of the great threats to the security of e-businesses. Some common security concerns for e-Businesses include keeping business and customer information private and confidential, authenticity of data, and data integrity. Some of the methods of protecting e-business security and keeping information secure include physical security measures as well as data storage, data transmission, anti-virus software, firewalls, and encryption to list a few.Розглянуто та рекомендовано до друку на засіданні кафедри інноваційного менеджменту та підприємництва, протокол No1 від 27 серпня 2015 року. Схвалено та рекомендовано до друку на засіданні методичної комісії факультету управління та бізнесу у виробництві Тернопільського національного технічного університету імені Івана Пулюя, протокол No6 від 26 лютого 2016 року.The purpose of thе document is to present the different underlying "technologies" (in reality, organizational modes based on information and communication technologies) and their associated acronyms. The term "e-Business" therefore refers to the integration, within the company, of tools based on information and communication technologies (generally referred to as business software) to improve their functioning in order to create value for the enterprise, its clients, and its partners.Topic 1. Basic concepts of electronic business and electronic commerce 1.1. Basic concepts and principles of e-business. 1.2. Origins and growth of e-commerce. Topic 2. Ecommerce as a part of electronic business 2.1. E-business infrastructure, e-environment and e-business strategy 2.2. Ways of e-business conducting. Online trading. Topic 3. Basis of global computer network internet functioning. 3.1. Basic principles of internet. 3.2. The most common services of Іnternet. 3.3. The concept and structure of Internet marketing. Topic 4. E-commerce systems in corporate sector 4.1. The basic processes of implementation of electronic commerce in the B2B sector. Virtual enterprise, internet incubator, mobile commerce. 4.2. The role of supply-chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM) in e-commerce. Topic 5. Information management for effective e-commerce building through intranet and extranet 5.1. Basic principles of Intranet functioning. 5.2. Extranet and its security issues. Topic 6. Electronic payment systems 6.1. Electronic payment systems. 6.2. Primary classification of payment systems