Public procurement for innovation: A novel eGovernment services scheme in Greek local authorities

Despite the renewed interest among policy makers and academic scholars on Public Procurement for Innovation (PPI) as an important demand-side policy instrument that triggers innovation, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the implementation of PPI practices and such research has been mainly focused on the demand side without taking into account the supply-side perceptions. This paper seeks to offer empirical evidence on public procurement as a tool for promoting innovation by examining a pilot pioneer eGovernment project at the local authorities' level. The specific project attempted to address the challenge of providing value-added eGovernment services to citizens and businesses achieving at the same time a more efficient management of resources and organizational processes and significant scale economies for Greek local authorities. Through case study work that mainly focused on the supply-side actors, this study illustrates the main stages of the procurement process providing a comprehensive picture of the resulting benefits and the related deficiencies and management challenges that ultimately led to the delayed implementation and the partial completion of the project Some interesting policy implications arise. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.