Assessing qualification systems: The relevance of explicating implicit reasoning

In public procurement, most contractors view the qualifying procedures they are obliged to follow as time consuming and wasteful. For one category of public clients, EU rules offer an alternative to qualifying for each project. Public clients operating in the water, energy, transport or telecommunications sectors may establish and operate a so-called "qualification system". This offers contractors the opportunity to qualify for a period of time rather than an individual project. The reasons for applying such a qualification system seem traditionally to be rooted in reducing transaction costs, particularly where the administrative demands are significant relative to the typical value of contracts. As such, it may seem self-evident that a client’s choice between the two approaches should be based on cost efficiency considerations. However, cost efficiency may not be the only motive behind employing a qualification system. A case study is presented here that examines the evolution of such a system and the corresponding reasoning by its operator. While exploring the usability of a conceptual model for managing procurement knowledge, additional reasons for operating the qualification system are reconstructed by exposing the implicit organizational knowledge. Initial results show that formal reasons are combined with implicit ones. These implicit reasons are found to be key in explaining the current utilization of the qualification system. Over time, implicit reasons get included in the reasoning process and come to dominate the original formal reasons. Without proper explication of these reasons, the real value of the qualification system may remain undetected. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it reports a case study in which the usability of a model developed for managing procurement knowledge is explored. Second, this paper offers a first insight into the evolution of a qualification system and the corresponding reasoning by its operator.