Samenvatting

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.