This introductory article for the special issue on governance matters in public procurement explores the significant impact procurement has on markets and society. It delves into the intricate balance between control and trust within the procurement process, contrasting traditional contractual governance with relational governance. Contributions in this special issue shed light on various governance issues, from crisis management to sustainability transitions and supplier management. A recurring theme across the articles is the call for increased flexibility, professionalisation, and collaboration in procurement, recognising the necessity of balancing control and trust. This article offers insights into the challenges and opportunities inherent in public procurement, emphasising the need for a strategic approach to navigate the complexities of contemporary procurement issues.

In this article, we demonstrate how the governance of procurement processes unfolded during the acquisition of face masks and other personal protective equipment amid the COVID-19 crisis. An extensive document analysis was conducted, spanning January 2020 to December 2021, and encompassing over 522 documents, including news articles, parliamentary records, and internal communications. Our research reveals that, under the pressure of a crisis, the mode of control changes, and there are instances where a conscious decision is made not to actively manage the process. We refer to this as ‘laissez-faire governance.’ However, this approach can lead to challenges later in the procurement process and limited possibilities for control at a later stage, thereby posing accountability challenges, particularly in the public domain. Based on our study, we conclude that there does not necessarily need to be more or better control during crises, but rather a focus on prioritisation: when and for what aspects is control essential? And when can a more hands-off approach be adopted?

The Netherlands wants to be climate neutral and circular by 2050. The transitions that these policy ambitions envision have a major impact on society, since new technologies and social innovations also bring along a multitude of values that are influenced by the policies that promote these transitions. In this contribution we describe how public procurement can fulfil an intermediary role by iteratively aligning the supply of innovative solutions with the ongoing demand for safeguarding public values during transition processes. We focus on transition policies directed at the built environment and provide insight into how public procurement can guarantee more transparency, certainty and other public values by actively making connections to the value chain when implementing transition policies.

In 2015, the Dutch government decentralised a significant part of its responsibilities in the ‘social domain’ to local governments. Faced with these new social tasks, many municipalities opted to outsource them. Not all municipalities are satisfied with the quality of public services, and some are choosing to take on some of the tasks themselves again. However, municipalities face staff shortages and increasingly choose to hire external staff when outsourcing tasks. Whichever strategy municipalities choose, the provision of public services in the social domain demands a great deal of expertise in the field of good commissioning practices. In this article, we speak to 56 principals and contractors about the conditions and pitfalls of procurement. There is a trend towards municipalities putting more limits on outsourcing and instead taking tasks in the areas of participation, integration and debt relief into their own hands. There seems to be a preference for more public ownership and more relational forms of procurement focused on long-term goals. This also requires new knowledge building. The local government should be the ‘treasurer’ of the quality of public administration directing the quality of public services.

A procurement procedure implies that the organisation has assessed whether outsourcing is financially preferable to vertical integration of production. Transaction cost economics is commonly used as a framework for this assessment. The basics in transaction cost theory focus on a bilateral relation between commissioning and supplying entities. When it concerns public service delivery, a third party, the actual user of the service, is often involved. The actual user also faces transaction costs, but they are often neglected during the procurement procedure. This paper focuses on the relevance of transaction costs for third parties and suggests including third-party transaction costs explicitly as a selection criterion in a public procurement procedure.

Suppliers are crucial for the Dutch central government to achieve its societal tasks. Annually, the Dutch central government purchases €15.2 billion worth of products, services and works. Dealing adequately with suppliers to achieve the intended goals is important for every professional in the role of client, purchaser or contract manager. However, knowledge on how public organisations, and the Dutch central government in particular, develop and execute supplier relationship management is limited. The Public Procurement professorship conducted a qualitative, exploratory study into supplier relationship management at procurement organisations of the Dutch central government. The practice of supplier relationship management was explored in three graduation studies and ten semi-structured interviews. It appears that supplier relationship management at the Dutch central government is still nascent, diffuse and diverse. Supplier relationship management is not yet consciously implemented and exercised. It is clearly a field in development and would benefit from further professionalisation.

In this article, we draw lessons from the set-up and contractual and relational governance of an integrated urban transformation. We investigated whether and how the approach of this grand challenge in the built environment addresses complexity and uncertainty. Our research demonstrates the importance of an integrated programmatic approach, bringing together various policy issues, actors and resources to achieve common objectives. To promote value creation, the approach should recognise the complexity of the challenge at hand. This requires joint vision development, attention to diverse actors’ interests and values and coordination of interrelated project and non-project activities. Under financial constraints, there may be an increased demand for complexity reduction and control through strict contractual governance and focus on individual projects. However, this does not serve the overarching goal. In addition to contractual governance, relational flexibility is necessary to address uncertain future circumstances and ensure successful collaboration. Public clients should pay more attention to the coherence and interface between project and non-project activities, mutual trust among partners, joint problem-solving and conflict management.

This research focuses on changing the role of public procurement in the public sector with the emergence of NPG. A municipal case study is used to understand the complex dynamics between projects and the broader organisational context. The findings show value conflicts arising from the convergence of elements of TPA, NPM, and NPG in different arenas in commissioning. These findings provide insight into the challenges public clients face in integrating NPG in a context where traditional governance mechanisms and contractual procurement processes are still dominant and argue for a flexible approach to public value creation that will allow public clients to better manage value complexity in construction and further professionalize themselves.

This essay highlights the tensions between legal and cultural citizenship in the implementation of return policy for illegalized migrant children in the Netherlands and Belgium. Despite being integral parts of these societies in many respects, their legal status renders them deportable. I argue that return policy for this group suffers from a legitimacy deficit because it conflicts with moral norms and values associated with cultural citizenship ideals. My research indeed shows that officials and others involved in the implementation of return policy continuously legitimize their actions and the underlying policy to justify the deportation of illegalized children and morally substantiate it. They do so by discursively placing them outside the community of members. My work therefore exposes the arbitrary and contestable ‘legitimation work’ put up to normalize and effectuate deportations. I challenge the legal approach to citizenship and call for a reevaluation of what it means to be part of a national community.