Strategic responses by the public procurement oversight authority (PPOA) to environmental changes

Abstract

Change is about survival, change is especially necessary in organizations that wish to prosper in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment. If changes rocking the external environment were temporary, the slow and uncertain pace at which organizations change would matter less. But, the reverse is true. Powerful forces in the environment are pressuring public and private organizations to alter permanently existing structures, policies, and practices (Bolman & Deal, 1991). Organizations have to be proactive in order for them to be able to respond quickly to the changes in the environment. Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) has encountered several environmental changes such as political, technological, external pressure from donors and other multilateral organizations, and lastly legal and policy changes. The research was an in-depth case study about strategic responses adopted by the Public Procurement Oversight Authority to environmental changes. The objective of the study was to find the strategic responses that PPOA has adopted in order to overcome the changes in the environment. The study was conducted by carrying out in-depth interviews of the targeted respondents and the analysis of the secondary data. The study established a number of strategic responses adapted by PPOA to the changes in the environment these include: advancements in technology, strategic partnerships, outsourcing of services, performance contracting, business process re-engineering (BPR), benchmarking and performance measurement. These strategic responses are discussed in detail in the chapters of the research project. The success of the study was limited and constrained by some of the targeted respondents who could not be easily accessed because some of them were usually busy with their duties so they could not attend to the interviewer or would prefer to respond when they had time which meant the delay in the collection of data. Further studies could be done to identify how PPOA will review the procurement law in order to align it to new constitution.