Public procurement as regulated decision making problem: Challenges for DSS

In recent times, managers have been faced with increasing levels of regulations which constrain their decision making and introduce unprecedented requirements for transparency and compliance. Public Procurement (PP), which is an important economic activity, as well as a powerful governmental policy tool, is one area where the level of regulation has reached unparalleled proportions with serious implications for decision makers and organisations. However, current literature does not offer an adequate discussion of public procurement as a decision making problem. This paper looks at PP in the context of Hungary to try and indentify the implications of the PP European and Hungarian legal frameworks for decision makers and for developers of decision support tools. The paper concludes that the highly regulatory setting for PP creates for decision makers, a normative framework which goes well beyond simple constraints on how to select suppliers. This in turn poses challenges for DSS which are discussed.