Fostering Agility Through Public Procurement Reforms: The Role of Experienced Procurement Officers

In an attempt to respond to the public in a more agile way, some governments have implemented procurement reforms. By reducing red tape, policymakers expect to decrease contracting lead-times and improve quality standards in public procurement. Nevertheless, achieving improved performance also depends on the public officers involved in procurement functions. This paper examines a law change designed to improve procurement agility in the Brazilian public procurement context. Our findings suggest that the new procurement regime has helped to decrease contracting lead-times. However, the results also suggest that procurement managed by more experienced procurement officers tend to take longer. The paper concludes that more experienced procurement officers tend to be more susceptible to organizational inertia because existing goal ambiguity along with incentive structures in the public sector amplify the misalignment between existing practices and expected policy goals. This suggests that policymakers should pay attention to organizational traits, such as public officers’ accumulated experience, when designing reforms to make governments more agile.