E-Procurement Effectiveness' from Users's Perspective

Understanding Government E-Procurement Effectiveness from Users’ Perspectives

A Case of Social Media Discussion in Indonesia Local Government

Author: Nurdin Nurdin

[email protected] Paper presented at International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

28-30 May 2014, Bandung - Indonesia ( Full paper in IEEE explore (in press)

STATE INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIS STUDIES (IAIN) PALU2014

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Research Background Literature review Methodology Findings Discussion and Conclusion Limitation & Future research

International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT) 28-30 May 2014, Bandung - Indonesia

INTRODUCTION

Government E-Procurement:

“a comprehensive process in which governments use IT systems to establish agreements for the acquisition of products or services (contracting) or to purchase products or services in exchange for payment (purchasing) (Moon, 2005, P.54)”


E-Procurement

Improve transparency Reduce cost Increase supplier awareness Save time Reduce work load Enable collaboration between customer and suppliers.

International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT) 28-30 May 2014, Bandung

Why E-Procurement?

Social media (a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content) (Kaplan and Heinlein, 2010)

The use of social media:◦ Facilitate social relationships, and to increase self-esteem

and life satisfaction (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007)◦ Exchange questions and answers in a short timeframe among

involved people (Agichtein, Castillo, Donato, Gionis, & Mishne, 2008)

◦ for marketing and promotion tools (Smith & Zook, 2011)◦ instruments to control and monitor government employees

behaviour and policy (John C. Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2010)◦ A medium to increase government openness and

transparency in implementing a policy (Bonsón et al., 2012)


Social Media

researchers have opportunities to monitor and understand what and how the individual or groups are using the social media (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011)

Examples:◦ exchange questions and answers◦ distribute, receive contents (photos, videos,

etc)◦ keep track of government policies


Social media for Research settings

obtain a rich source of data to analyse (Greene, Choudhry, Kilabuk, & Shrank, 2010)

opportunity for researchers to understand both textual and graphical (Hookway, 2008)

More natural settings (Bianco & Carr-Chellman, 2000) e.g Free from pressures (e.g. time and space) and bias (informants may please researchers in conventional interviews)


Social media for research settings continued

Government E-procurement in Luwu Utara Regency:

Reason to implement and use e-procurement: large volumes of paper-work high levels of error in manual procurement slow transaction processes Improve transparency Reduce collusion and corruption efficiency


Case Context

A case study Online data were gathered from social media sites used by

local businesses and its staff (Facebook and a company Blog) The author captured 149 Facebook conversation threads from

April to end of June 2013 (conversations, images, and data) The author also analysed a company’s Blog The author extracted the threads according to certain topics

(Zimbra, Fu, & Li, 2009) Codes were generated from the distinct discussion threads as

recommended by Kane & Fichman (2009) data analysis was carried out through iterations; open coding,

axial coding and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 1998) Four themes were generated


Methodology

Theme 1. Lack of transparency:

“Project document evaluation was not clear, there was no explanation from the auction committee, do you think committee members are accredited????? “ Conversations: WDPK: “our question is what was our mistake?

Why they disqualified us????” YH : Sent your complaints……slap the committee…. WDPK: all not clear…started from auction

document submission, evaluation process, and announcement…..all careless


Findings

Theme 2: Lack of staff professionalism

“Project document evaluation was not clear, there was no explanation from the auction committee, do you think committee members are accredited?????” (WDPK)

Things that we consider all funny and lies are included: 1. There was an error: "They changed project budget of

Budget estimation section. Pipe installation pvc aw 3/4” from 708,02 billion rupiah to 708,20 billion rupiah"

2. there was an error: "The price of a pipe pvc aw 3/4" more than 110% from regulated price which is 25.000,-/meter become 100.000,-" per meter.


Findings

Theme 3: corruption and collusion may still take place

WS: The project tendering announcement is on 15 June 2012 at 15.40pm s/d 23.59pm (There was no announcement until 17 June 2012 up to 21.54 pm. Complaint should be made by 18 June 2012 between 08:00 am to 22 June 2012 16:00pmWho want to complain___??? No winners have been decided yet my friends___????

FS: It was a magic tendering……. WS: Online tendering with manual style……….. GZ : artificial online tendering…. It just a camouflage to conform

to regulation….. AD: There is no guarantee …there is always a room to

negotiate (collusion)…electronic system should be faster and transparent…but the system malfunction always become a reason..(to make collusion)

KB: ghost tendering…..change the head of department…..sent him back to hisInternational Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT)

28-30 May 2014, Bandung - Indonesia

Findings: continue

Theme 4: lack of conflict resolution

“DC: this all games…I suggest to print on screen so we can use as evident and make a report..

KBK: that makes me confuse…to whom we should make complain?

WS: that’s true…who should be complained and to whom we should complain? They are all friends…I suggest complaining on Facebook only…so everyone knows their behaviour…


Findings: continue

The users of e-procurement system have expressed various perceptions on the e-procurement effectiveness. The e-procurement users perceived the e-procurement as lack

transparent in procurement procedures, the system was not managed professionally by employees, corruption and collusion may be still practiced in the system use, the system did not provide the users with facilities to send complaints.


Discussion

Based on users’ perspectives, e-procurement system in Luwu Utara regency has been considered as lack of effectiveness. This perception is based on the findings that the e-procurement system was lack clarity in procedures such as bidding assessment and project awarding mechanism

Data from social media can be used to validate offline data gathering

Challenges: too much data, various types of data, ethical, copyright, and anonymity

Future research need to focus on ethical issues, privacy, and anonymity.


Conclusions

Only relies on online data which was collected from participants whose identities are difficult to verify.

The data neither was validated with face to face interview nor confirmed to the local government employees or the e-procurement system manager and staffs.

Future research need to conduct study which involve face to face interviews with the system users and also need

Involve the local government employees and the system manager


Limitation & Future research

The End

E-Procurement Effectiveness' from Users's Perspective

Government & Nonprofit

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