Kugonza, S (2010) Influence of formal and informal institutions on outsourcing of public construction projects in Uganda. PhD thesis, University of Birmingham, UK.
Abstract
This thesis examines how the process of outsourcing of public construction (OPC) projects is influenced by institutions and why. Extant literature focuses on explaining how outsourcing through competition improves efficiency with limited treatment of how institutions actually influence the OPC projects. The thesis develops an analytical framework for process-tracing that integrates institutional and social capital (SC) theories to examine what have hitherto been disparately employed to study their influence in policy reform implementation. By deploying this integrated framework, actors' decision making in outsourcing process is analysed based on plural rationality at central (CG) and local government (LG) contexts. The thesis argues that actors in OPC simultaneously pursue material gains and SC investments while trying to minimise their transaction costs, in the process engaging in ‘forum shopping' between formal and informal institutions. Depending on degree of social embeddedness, the process of outsourcing will incline to formality or informality. In the case of Uganda, findings indicate that the informal institutional regime dominates and no major difference in informal practices for both CG and LG levels exist although at CG level it may appear like formal institutions dominate in decision making. The thesis proposes that public policies should take cognisance of informal institutions as well as social structure in their design.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | competition; decision making; efficiency; government; investment; local government; Mali; outsourcing; policy; rationality; social structure; transaction cost; Uganda |
| Index terms: | public policy, Mali, analytical framework, implementation, transaction cost, rationality, embeddedness, decision-making, Uganda, public construction, outsourcing, competition, social structure, social capital, efficiency, local government |
| Subjects: | administrative law, data analysis and analytics, market analysis, public policy, financial analysis, decision-making and reasoning, decision analysis, building construction, sociology, Geography, social theory, business, contractual arrangements, performance management |
| Topics: | Geographical Context, Cost Management, Governance, Engineering Principles, Procurement, Risk Management, Legal Issues, Research Practice, Quality Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here