Search Results (448)

The transition toward sustainable facility management requires cleaning systems that reduce environmental burdens while maintaining high hygienic standards. This study presents a comparative evaluation of a green cleaning protocol (EVA SmartClean), compliant with the Italian Minimum Environmental Criteria (CAM; D.M. 29 January 2021), compared with a conventional cleaning system implemented in a civil facility (Adriatico Guest House, Trieste, Italy; 8260 m²). The assessment integrates a cradle-to-grave Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), conducted in accordance with ISO 14040, ISO 14044, ISO 14067 and PCR 2011:03 for professional cleaning services, with an extensive microbiological surface monitoring campaign performed using RODAC plates and swab sampling. The functional unit was defined as 1 m² of representative surface maintained clean for one year. The green protocol achieved a 47.7% reduction in Global Warming Potential (GWP100 based on IPCC AR6 characterization factors), corresponding to −110 g CO₂e/m²·year and −908 kg CO₂e/year for the entire facility. Major reductions in climate impact were associated with chemical consumption (−82.6%), energy use (−49.5%), and textile waste generation (−92.4%). Microbiological analyses demonstrated that both protocols complied with reference hygiene thresholds, while the green system achieved reductions in total mesophilic counts that were comparable or superior across representative surfaces. The results confirm that environmental optimization in cleaning services can be achieved without compromising microbiological safety, supporting public procurement policies aligned with CAM requirements and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 12 and 13). Full article

The accelerating electrification of public transport systems has increased the need for objective and transparent decision-support tools in electric bus (e-bus) procurement. Although multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches are frequently employed to evaluate e-bus alternatives, limited attention has been paid to the consistency of rankings produced by different objective weighting techniques. This study addresses this gap by proposing an integrated evaluation framework that combines the CRITIC-MARCOS and Entropy-MARCOS methods to assess e-bus alternatives against technical and operational criteria. Six e-bus models are evaluated using nine performance indicators structured as benefit and cost criteria, reflecting the procurement context of a central public transport authority in a large metropolitan area. Criterion weights are independently calculated using the CRITIC and Entropy approaches and subsequently integrated into the MARCOS method to generate alternative rankings. To examine the robustness of the results, a sensitivity analysis based on the TOPSIS and Average Ranking Methods is conducted. The findings indicate that the proposed framework produces consistent and stable rankings across different weighting techniques. These results suggest that integrating multiple objective weighting methods within an MCDM framework can enhance transparency and reliability in high-investment public transport procurement decisions and support strategic planning for low-carbon urban mobility. Full article

This study aims to identify the factors causing employer-induced disruption in construction projects and to examine why contractors do not file claims despite frequently encountering such losses. It also aims to develop a scale with tested reliability and validity to measure the causes of employer-induced disruption. Data for the study were collected through a structured questionnaire administered to architects and civil engineers working on the contractor side in projects conducted under the Public Procurement Law No. 4734. The data obtained in the study were analyzed using SPSS 27.0 and AMOS 24 software. The scale development process included exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using separate samples following the reliability and validity assessments. The findings indicate that the proposed scale possesses a valid and reliable single-factor structure. Additionally, the results reveal that the most significant reasons for not filing a claim are: the lack of qualified technical staff required for record-keeping, the absence of a clause in the contract regarding disruption, and concerns about the potential deterioration of future employment relations with the employer. This study contributes to the literature by providing a validated measurement tool for assessing employer-related disruptions. It also offers recommendations for improving contract management, the documentation process, and awareness of issues among technical staff. Full article

Building Information Modeling (BIM) supports information integration and coordination across the construction lifecycle, but benefits depend on collaboration that is shaped by the selected project delivery method (PDM). BIM-PDM evidence is difficult to consolidate due to heterogeneous terminology and fragmented, context-specific studies. This scoping review maps which PDMs are addressed in the BIM-related literature and how adequacy is framed. Following PRISMA-ScR, Web of Science and Scopus were searched and 71 studies met the eligibility criteria. Publications increased markedly after 2018 and were geographically concentrated, with the largest shares associated with author affiliations in China, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Malaysia, and the United States. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) was the most frequently examined (46 studies), followed by Design–Bid–Build (DBB) (29), Design–Build (DB) (29), Public–Private Partnership (PPP) (17), and Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) (14), while Alliancing, Lean-oriented delivery approaches, and Construction Management were comparatively underrepresented. A temporal analysis indicates a recent shift toward collaborative delivery methods in BIM research. Case-based studies are predominantly situated in public sector projects, with DBB, DB, EPC, and IPD examined across both infrastructure and building contexts, while PPP is limited to infrastructure. The literature is largely focused on design and construction phases, with limited attention to early project stages and operation and maintenance. Results indicate both traditional and relationship-based PDMs are studied in the existing literature, with research framing PDMs that allow for early contractor involvement as most compatible with BIM. Moreover, IPD, DB, and EPC show the best alignment compared to most used traditional DBB methods primarily due to the early involvement of the contractor in the project. EPC and DB achieve this through the allocation of responsibility to the contractor, whereas IPD relies on the early engagement of key participants and the systematic alignment of their objectives. Collaborative and relationship-based approaches are consistently presented as the most suitable for BIM, while DBB tends to constrain BIM benefits because of its fragmented nature. This study contributes by providing a systematic synthesis of BIM-PDM relationships in the scientific literature, identifying the key mechanisms underlying the suitability of different delivery methods for BIM implementation, and offering recommendations for future research based on the identified gaps. Full article

Smart-city programmes in emerging economies often produce climate-risk registers, dashboards, and narrative reports that do not lead to real changes in technical specifications or budget decisions. This study examines how the internal audit function can transform such symbolic compliance into enforceable climate-governance practices within Egypt’s state-led smart-city developments. This paper applies an interpretive single-case study design, drawing on interviews, documents, and field observations to analyse how climate-risk signals move from operational systems into governance, procurement, and reporting routines. A unified risk-and-control framework is introduced that integrates enterprise risk management, internal control over sustainability information, and the requirements of the international climate-disclosure standards. The findings show that an internal audit provides the enforcement mechanism that converts climate-scenario breaches into mandatory amendments to design clauses, acceptance tests, and operating and capital expenditure decisions across critical assets such as coastal protection, water systems, district cooling, mobility, and data-centre infrastructure. This study offers a practical governance architecture—such as threshold-to-specification tables, climate-weighted procurement gates, quarterly compliance certifications, and verifiable data-lineage controls—that enables public managers to embed accountable and transparent climate resilience within smart-city programmes. This research contributes to sustainability governance by demonstrating how an internal audit moves climate-risk management from narrative reporting toward enforceable, auditable action. Full article

Although trenchless technology is widely recognized for its low-carbon potential, existing assessment models often overlook the significant impact of regional geological variations on energy consumption. Based on the EN 15804 standard and the Input–Process–Output (IPO) model, this study establishes a high-resolution carbon emission assessment framework focusing on the “Upfront Carbon” stages (Modules A1–A5) of public works. An empirical study was conducted on a sewage microtunneling project in Hualien, Taiwan, characterized by a deep burial depth of 12 m and challenging gravel formations (SPT N-value > 50). Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) principles were adopted to quantify the carbon footprint and benchmark the results against international guidelines from the UK (PJA) and Japan (JSWA). The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) reveals a unit emission intensity of 349 kgCO₂e/m, significantly higher than international benchmarks. Critical findings indicate that this discrepancy is primarily driven by environmental variables—specifically, geological resistance and grid emission factors. Crucially, the sensitivity analysis demonstrates that the physical resistance of the hard gravel layer increased machinery energy intensity by 18.7% compared to baseline soil conditions. This study officially defines this phenomenon as the “Geological Premium.” Additionally, carbon efficiency was found to be profoundly influenced by the regional grid emission factor (Taiwan: 0.495 vs. UK: 0.193 kgCO₂/kWh). This research establishes a localized empirical database and validates the necessity of expanding assessment boundaries to include auxiliary works in geologically complex regions. The developed framework provides a scalable solution for optimizing embodied carbon in urban infrastructure, offering policymakers a robust scientific basis for implementing precise “Green Public Procurement” and carbon budgeting strategies. Full article

The detection of corruption-related indicators within unstructured, textual procurement data remains a complex task due to linguistic ambiguity, contextual variation and domain-specific terminology. This study presents a comparative evaluation of three transformer-based Natural Language Processing (NLP) architectures (BERT-base-uncased, RoBERTa-base and DeBERTa-v3-base) for automated corruption risk indicator detection in procurement texts coming from heterogeneous sources. A unified dataset is constructed by linking unstructured technical documentation with structured procurement outcomes, enabling an outcome-driven risk labeling strategy. Performance evaluation is conducted through different metrics, including precision, recall, F1-score and ROC-AUC, complemented by explainability analysis using Integrated Gradients. The results demonstrate a clear performance progression and highlight the comparative strengths of the evaluated architectures. Overall, this study highlights the potential of contextual transformer models to support scalable, transparent and operational anti-corruption monitoring systems. Full article

Ensuring uninterrupted access to essential medicines in public healthcare systems is a persistent challenge with clinical, economic, and environmental implications. Oncology services are particularly vulnerable to stockouts, which compromise therapeutic continuity and increase reliance on urgent procurement with high carbon and waste footprints. This study proposes a risk-informed, data-driven framework for pharmaceutical inventory governance in a high-complexity public oncology hospital in Chile, aligning with sustainability goals and green supply chain principles. Using operational data from 2023–2024, we integrate descriptive analytics, ABC–XYZ segmentation, and a continuous-review (s, Q) policy extended through a Logistic Risk Index (LRI) that consolidates demand variability, supply performance, and clinical-economic criticality. Empirical analysis reveals strong expenditure concentration in AX/AY segments and significant misalignment between institutional and analytically derived parameters. A Monte Carlo simulation N = 1000 runs per scenario) compares baseline, adjusted, and fully risk-informed policies under stochastic demand and lead-time conditions. Results show that the risk-informed configuration reduces stockout exposure by up to 46%, improves fill rates (93.1% → 96.4%), and shortens replenishment delays, while maintaining total logistic cost stability. Critically, urgent orders decrease from 27.4 to 14.8 per year, avoiding an estimated 630 kg CO₂ emissions and 25 kg of packaging waste annually. These findings demonstrate that resilience, efficiency, and sustainability are not competing objectives but can be jointly achieved through integrated analytics and governance. The proposed approach offers a scalable blueprint for public health systems seeking to transition from reactive inventory management toward anticipatory, transparent, and sustainability-oriented decision-making, contributing to SDG 3 (health and well-being) and SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production). Full article

Many construction tenders conducted by public institutions and organizations are canceled for various reasons, leading to project delays, resource inefficiencies, and disruptions to public services. This research aims to analyze the reasons for construction tender cancellations and the factors that influence the likelihood of cancellation, with a focus on institutional capacity and transaction costs. The cancelled tenders were obtained from the Electronic Public Procurement Platform (EKAP), which is officially used by public bodies. A total of 2483 construction tenders canceled in 2024 were analyzed. This figure represents 15.44% of the construction tenders conducted in Turkey in 2024. The construction tenders examined were subjected to a categorical frequency analysis using administrative reason codes. Additionally, weighted logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the likelihood of cancellation among the 16,105 construction tenders held in 2024. According to the analysis results, region, type of administration, time, and tender type have a statistically significant impact on cancellation. The primary causes for cancellation include bids substantially above the estimated cost, the absence of submitted tenders, and the issuance of a published circular. The municipal elections held in March 2024 and the accompanying circular have led to an increase in tender cancellations. Inadequate institutional capacity may lead to uncertainty in the process; this, in turn, may result in the suspension of tenders and a rise in transaction costs. In this context, strengthening institutional resilience can be seen as a facilitator in resolving many issues. The factors that lead to tender cancellations and the suggested approaches can offer useful guidance for both the administration and contractors in normalizing processes. Furthermore, public authorities might consider investments to enhance institutional capacity to reduce the risk of tender cancellations. Full article

Public project performance is shaped by both organisational capability and governance controls, yet the interaction between these factors remains underexamined in decentralised public administration contexts. This study examines the direct effects of team capability and ethical compliance on project performance, and tests whether ethical compliance conditions the capability–performance relationship. A quantitative explanatory survey design was adopted. Structured questionnaires were administered to 320 senior officers involved in project evaluation, procurement, budgeting and technical oversight, and the data were analysed using PLS-SEM to estimate the hypothesised direct and moderating relationships. Team capability and ethical compliance each have a significant positive effect on project performance, and team capability is positively associated with ethical compliance. The moderating effect of ethical compliance is significant but small in magnitude, indicating that higher levels of compliance modestly attenuate the marginal performance gains associated with greater team capability. These findings suggest that while compliance mechanisms strengthen accountability and directly support performance, they may simultaneously constrain the discretionary flexibility through which capable teams generate incremental improvements. The study contributes to public management research by empirically demonstrating a conditional capability–governance relationship in a local government project context. Given the moderate explanatory power of the model, future research should incorporate additional institutional and political variables to further clarify performance drivers in public-sector project systems. Full article

As a proactive response, reserving a certain amount of relief materials in advance is crucial for responding to potential disasters. Different from public tendering and bidding, this study proposes the purchasing mode of authorization, under which a nonprofit organization (NPO), as a buyer, wholly authorizes the procurement of relief materials to a professional agent. The relief material procurement system under the purchasing mode of authorization is regarded as a bilevel relief supply chain consisting of one buyer, one agent, and two suppliers with private information about the quality levels of relief materials. For the disclosure of private information, the quality-related procurement strategy is designed in the form of a menu based on the suppliers’ private information. A bilevel optimization model is developed based on agency theory to derive the optimal strategic decisions, and the impacts of the main influencing factors on the optimal procurement strategy and the buyer’s minimum expected cost are discussed via numerical analysis. Then, the study is extended by exploring supplier’s alternative cost functions and supply availability, as well as proposing future research directions. This paper presents an optimal quality-related procurement strategy, which provides rules for quickly responding to the changes in influencing factors during the material procurement process, as well as the minimum expected cost for the buyer to purchase relief materials, which serves as a threshold for screening a reliable retail enterprise as the agent. Finally, three managerial implications with practical significance, drawn from our findings, are presented to facilitate cooperation between NPO and large retail enterprises in order to achieve effective procurement of relief materials at the pre-disaster preparation stage. Full article

Integrating third-party Machine Learning (ML) models into industrial Operational Technology (OT) creates a procurement deadlock: operators cannot verify vendor performance claims without sharing representative evaluation data with vendors, while vendors refuse to reveal proprietary model weights before purchase, rendering traditional safeguards such as Non-Disclosure Agreements technically unenforceable. This paper introduces a framework combining Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) with smart contracts to enable trust-minimized, cryptographically verifiable competitive model procurement in Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS). Vendors cryptographically prove that their model outperforms a legacy baseline without disclosing proprietary weights, a process we term cryptographic performance attestation, while the on-chain workflow automates escrow, proof verification, and best-vendor selection with arbiter-based dispute resolution. ZKP privacy is scoped to vendor model weights; operator-side evaluation-data confidentiality is managed separately via synthetic, de-identified, or public benchmark data. We analyze three ZKP workflow variations and evaluate them on consumer-grade hardware, achieving proving times of approximately three seconds and sub-dollar on-chain verification costs under Layer-2 fee assumptions for the recommended single-proof variation, while identifying computational trade-offs of recursive proof aggregation. The entire verification phase operates offline with no impact on real-time OT control paths, bridging the IT/OT pre-transaction trust gap while deferring artifact deployment to existing OT tooling. Full article

As the Philippines aims to electrify its vehicle fleet by 2030, it seeks to be a leading example for other government agencies adopting electric and hybrid electric vehicles. This study addresses the challenge of optimizing budget allocation to support this transition under fiscal constraints. A hybrid decision-making approach is employed, integrating the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and linear programming (LP) to guide procurement strategy. AHP is used to establish a hierarchy of decision criteria, and LP is used to translate these into the most favorable outcome constrained by budget limitations. This framework supports rational and criteria-driven decision-making for public fleet planning. The resulting model enables the Philippines to maximize the impact of electrification while adhering to financial and operational constraints. The findings contribute to policy-oriented planning models that align sustainability goals with real-world budgetary conditions. Full article

Background: Ethical challenges in public procurement are often addressed through compliance approaches that stress rule awareness. These perspectives, however, offer limited insight into how ethical intentions form before professional practice. This study develops and empirically validates the Procurement Literacy Capability Theory (PLCT), which conceptualises procurement literacy as a sequenced, interdependent set of capabilities that produce ethical readiness. Methods: Survey data were collected from 776 undergraduates in procurement-related programmes at four accredited Ghanaian universities. Structural equation modelling tested capability interdependence, sequencing, and behavioural translation. Mediation was examined via bootstrapped indirect effects, with sensitivity analysis using reduced structural models. Results: The findings support PLCT. Digital and E-Procurement Literacy predicts planning and decision-making capability, which then predicts supplier and contract management literacy. This literacy strongly influences Ethical Procurement Practice Literacy, the strongest predictor of Ethical Behavioural Intention. Legal and policy knowledge literacy has no direct effect on ethical intention but acts indirectly through ethical procurement practice capability. Models excluding ethical practice capability have much lower explanatory power. Conclusions: Ethical Behavioural Intention in procurement is shaped by sequenced capability development and applied ethical competence rather than rule awareness alone, confirming ethical practice literacy as the central behavioural mechanism within PLCT. Full article

Public cultural services are traditionally viewed as welfare provisions. However, this perspective overlooks their productive externalities as critical social infrastructure. This study treats China’s National Public Cultural Service System Demonstration Zone program as a quasi-natural experiment to examine its economic performance. The analysis utilizes panel data from 280 prefecture-level cities between 2008 and 2021 and employs a multi-period difference-in-differences model. Results show that the policy successfully increased employment in the cultural sector. This was achieved by enabling flexible labor opportunities through digital platforms and government procurement, rather than through significant growth in formal enterprises. We term this structural divergence De-organized Growth. Mechanism analysis confirms that Fiscal-Digital Synergy drives this phenomenon. Effective collaboration between government funding and digital technology activates cultural consumption on the demand side and facilitates disintermediation on the supply side. Crucially, we identify a nonlinear Digital Exclusion Trap. In this trap, fiscal support is ineffective or even counterproductive in regions falling below a critical digital infrastructure threshold. The findings suggest that the equalized provision of public culture serves as a productive input for achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 8 regarding decent work. We advocate for a shift in governance paradigms from traditional administration to a strategic purchaser role. This role leverages digital platforms to foster a more inclusive labor market. Full article