Spanish Public Sector Research Articles

The impact of EU public procurement regulations on tenders in Spain: a study with adalimumab.

Pharmaceutical spending accounts for a significant portion of public healthcare budgets. To manage these costs, EU countries implement various cost-containment policies, including competitive tendering for pharmaceuticals. This study examines the impact of EU public procurement regulations on medication procurement practices. A search for all published tenders of adalimumab in Spain from 2018 to 2024 in the Spanish Public Sector Procurement Database, a period that coincides with the implementation of European legislation and the emergence of adalimumab biosimilars. All available documentation for each tender was reviewed, including the tender offer, technical specifications, specific administrative clauses, appointments of evaluation commissions, supporting memorandum, and evaluation reports. Our findings reveal substantial price reductions following the introduction of adalimumab biosimilars, yet highlight significant variability in tender criteria and practices across different regions. Despite adherence to EU directives, the inconsistent application of economic and non-economic factors and an erratic criteria concerning price undermine the intended balance of quality and cost, complicating procurement processes and potentially affecting the availability of a given treatment for patients.

The relationship between culture and sustainable development goal compliance at the municipal level

AbstractThis study assesses the role of culture in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in the Spanish public sector, focusing on the influence of local government cultural spending and education levels on SDG compliance in municipalities. Cultural spending, considered as a percentage of total non‐financial local government spending, municipal education levels and SDG implementation indicators from the Sustainable Development Solutions Networks (SDSN)‐Spain are used in this research, which employs an ordinary least squares regression and two‐stage least squares analysis for robustness. The results suggest that higher levels of education correlate with SDG compliance, while increased spending on culture does not. Since the existing research about the impact of culture on the SDGs is limited, this study addresses this gap. It suggests that policymakers should promote culture and integrate sustainability into education to increase SDG awareness and implementation.

Progressing toward Teal Organizations: An Assessment of Organizational Innovation in the Spanish Public Administrations

Organizational innovation can be a promising path for public administrations to follow to become more supportive of the realization of sustainability goals. With the Teal Organizations framework as a reference, this study explores organizational innovation in Spanish public administrations by assessing the extent and patterns of the implementation of selected innovative organizational practices, with the aim to help them improve. This study performs multivariate and individual analyses of the variance and factor analysis of the responses given by Spanish public sector employees to an online questionnaire about the degree of implementation of certain practices in their organization. The results show that there are little differences in the degree of implementation of these practices among the national, regional, and local administrations and that this implementation does not seem to be guided by the three principles of Teal Organizations: self-management, wholeness, and evolutionary purpose, but by five factors combining them, labeled as trust, task assignment, meetings management, hierarchy, and community and values. Because of the low degree of implementation of the practices under the community and values factor and the comparatively low effort required to introduce them, these practices appear as interesting options to explore when considering administrative reforms.

Prioritizing Patient Safety: Analysis of the Procurement Process of Infusion Pumps in Spain.

To understand whether patient safety and human factors are considered in healthcare technology procurement, we analyzed the case of infusion pumps as their use critically affects patient safety. We reviewed infusion pump procurements in the Spanish Public Sector Procurement Database. Sixty-three batches in 29 tenders for supplying 12.224 volumetric and syringe infusion pumps and consumables for an overall budget of EUR 30.4 M were identified and reviewed. Concepts related to "ease of use" were identified in the selection requirements of 35 (55.6%) batches, as part of the criteria for the selection of pumps in 23 (36.5%) batches, related to "intuitiveness" in the selection requirements of 35 (55.6%) batches, and in the criteria in 10 (15.9%) batches. No method to evaluate the ease of use, intuitiveness, or usability was mentioned. A review of the procurement teams responsible for the evaluation of the tenders showed no reported human factors or patient safety expertise. We conclude that infusion pump procurement considers usability as a relevant criterion for selection. However, no human factor experts nor specific methods for evaluation of the technology in this field are usually defined. Potential room for refining the selection of healthcare technology to improve patient safety is detected.

The Relationship between Cost Overruns and Modifications for Construction Projects: Spanish Public Works and Their Legal Framework

Cost overruns are a common problem for public works projects, often due to modifications to the original design. While the causes of these modifications have been studied, the legal framework’s impact and limitations on these modifications have received extensive treatment, with no specific case studies from different countries. This paper explores the relationship between modifications in Spanish public works projects and their compliance with legal limits, investigating the alignment between base bidding prices and eventual costs after adjustments. The study also delves into the strategic behaviour of construction companies in Spain, which frequently involves manipulating project costs to match the initially proposed bidding price. Statistical methods, such as the Spearman correlation test and graphical analysis, confirm a nearly exact relationship between base bid price and final price. Also, a modification costs comparison for two different legal periods highlights the legal framework’s influence, as a less restrictive framework leads into higher average cost overruns. It provides valuable information to avoid malpractice for tendering institutions, practitioners, and legal developers, as well as those interested in the Spanish public works sector, and opens the door for future research on solving this problem.

Corporatization and political ideology: The case of hospitals in Spain

AbstractCorporatization—arguably as important as privatization regarding public service reform—remains an under‐researched topic in Public Administration. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the implementation of different types of corporatization strategies can be explained by the ideology of the ruling party in the Spanish public healthcare sector, selected for study because this sector was subject to reform, particularly, decentralization and marketization. To do so, we use count‐data regression models to analyze secondary data from the 17 Spanish regional governments for the period 2003–2017. Our estimates reveal that right‐wing controlled regional governments exhibit a clear preference for corporatization strategies that actively involve the private sector, such as Public–Private Partnerships and Public Finance Initiatives. Further analysis suggests that left‐wing governments are positively associated with the implementation of corporatization strategies that do not involve the private sector, such as the creation of Public Enterprises and Public Entities. These results are robust to a variety of alternative specifications.

A Multi-step Process Approach for Estimating Public Sector Wages. The Spanish Experience

We propose a semiparametric model including problems of sample selection and endogeneity. Concretely, we focus on studying the effect of tenure in public sector wages. Here we face two problems: Public wages are only observed for public employees and the tenure is endogenous. The chosen method allows the introduction of a nonparametric control function and relaxing usual strong assumptions. This approach is applied to a wage model for the Spanish Public Sector, using the wage structure survey of 2016.

Hierarchical distance and employees' commitment as conditioning of team-based work in the Spanish public sector.

Team-based work (TBW) plays a crucial role in the success and quality of public services. In the context of the Spanish public sector, our study evaluates if a low level of hierarchical distance (HD) in public organizations condition the public employees' commitment (EC) as well as TBW, assessed in terms of participation and consensus among team members. Simultaneously, we evaluated to what extent EC help to enhance TBW. Employing a sample of 213 government organizations from the south of Spain through a model of structural equations, we were able to answer the above questions. Our results revealed that team-based work functions more successfully within public organizations where there exists little verticality in their structures, norms, values and rules - in simplest terms, where there is minimal organizational HD. Such results also suggest that although regulations exist in the Spanish public sector, should public organizations attempt to be less vertical and more horizontal, they would perhaps have public servants that were more committed to their organizations. As a result, servants view the organization as their own and remain loyal. Finally, from an academic perspective, this study could be one of few to research and evaluate the hierarchical role and employees' commitment to the functioning of public employees based on participation and consensus in their work teams.

Public sector, open innovation, and collaborative governance in lockdown times. A research of Spanish cases during the COVID-19 crisis

PurposeThis paper aims to study the results of open innovation initiatives in Spain under the lockdown during the first stages of the COVID-19 crisis. Based on the most recent literature on open innovation in the public sector, this paper explores the following research questions, namely, what are the key features of collaborative governance processes that guided open innovation initiatives in the Spanish public sector during the COVID-19 crises? How open public innovation cases generated public value to the society during the COVID-19 crises in Spain?Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on two in-depth case studies of open innovation in the public sector: the collaborative platform Frena la Curva and the hackathon Vence al Virus, both launched during the first moments of the COVID-19 crisis. The methodology is based on 13 semi-structured interviews, content observation and documentary analysis. The data were interpreted according to the dimensions described in the analytical framework: descriptive dimensions of both initiatives but also their degree of elaboration, incentives and objectives, characteristics of governance and collaboration between actors and challenges for the accountability processes; and finally, their procedural legitimacy, considering the COVID-19 crisis context.FindingsThe results of the study show that citizens have played a key role during the hardest stage of the crisis, collaborating with governments and advancing their innovative capabilities, mostly in the digital sphere. The analysis also identified different outcomes, including the improvement of citizen’s involvement, deliberation practices or network building. Besides, this paper has identified some limitations and barriers to open innovation and collaborative governance processes in terms of accountability and legitimacy of these initiatives. Here, their contribution was constrained by the emerging stage of implementation and by the unique circumstances of the lockdown under the COVID-19 crisis.Research limitations/implicationsFuture advancements of open innovation initiatives to consolidate collaborative governance processes will need further exploration. Although this paper diversified the contacts and the data collection in the fieldwork to avoid social biases, the results of the interviews might reflect very positive outcomes. Despite the case studies that took place during the COVID-19 crisis and their planned actions to maintain their existence, the post-crisis analysis will be needed to assess the impact of these open innovation cases in collaborative governance structures.Practical implicationsOpen innovation is an emerging narrative and practice in the public sector requiring time and energy from public officials and managers. The study also highlighted the problem of how to legitimate open innovation cases in the public sector and the implications for their institutionalization. Public managers involved in these types of initiatives need to keep the momentum both inside and outside their organizations. Regarding the utilization of information and communications technologies (ICTs), open innovation processes do not need technology to develop their full potential, whereas the COVID-19 crisis and the ongoing digitalization of work settings, accessibility, etc., could transform ICTs into a critical tool for public managers leading innovation initiatives within their organizations.Social implicationsThe social implications of this paper are manifold. This study provides evidence of one of the future avenues of public management: open innovation. New avenues for the involvement and collaboration of citizens with public authorities are another social implication pinpointed by this paper. Democratic legitimacy and procedural accountability are assessed using the open innovation case studies during the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, transforming governments using collaborative platforms deserves social oversight understanding if they really contribute to build trust in political institutions.Originality/valueDespite their differences, both Frena la Curva and Vence al Virus demonstrated the potential and limitations of public innovation and collaborative governance to cope with an unprecedented crisis such as the COVID-19. The special features of this emergency, including the long period of confinement, posed challenges and also opportunities to develop these initiatives: as several interviewees stated, these projects helped to channel the civic energy to co-produce solutions in collaboration with a wide range of actors. Data allow us to identify the key features of collaborative governance that guided open innovation initiatives in the Spanish public sector during the COVID-19 crisis.

Determinants of efficiency improvement in the Spanish public lighting sector

This research analyzes the factors that can improve the efficiency of public lighting. First, the annual and inter-annual efficiency levels are calculated. Second, the effects of a set of environmental variables on these efficiency levels are checked with a truncated regression model. The results show that public management is more efficient than private or mixed management. Higher tourism, stronger local governments, and more hours of sunlight appear to improve efficiency. Local governments with the highest budgetary revenues and the most urbanized area experience the greatest improvement in efficiency year after year.

Cost efficiency and financial situation of local governments in the Canary Isles during the recession

This paper examines cost efficiency in the Spanish municipal public sector, in a specific geographic area (the Canary Isles, Spain), with respect to financial condition and different types of municipal debt. The study focuses on municipalities dependent on tourism and on the consequences to them of the Great Recession, doing so via a two-stage analysis. In the first, the order-m method is used to evaluate the cost efficiency of 77 Canary Isles municipalities, for the period 2008-12. In the second stage, we examine the effect produced on cost efficiency by different types of borrowing (long term, short term, financial and commercial) together with other financial, economic, political and quality variables, using the model developed by Simar and Wilson (2007), based on a truncated bootstrap regression with panel data. Empirical analysis shows that in times of crisis there is a significant relationship between the components of financial condition and cost efficiency. In conclusion, municipal cost efficiency increases with commercial debt, but decreases with financial debt. Furthermore, certain socioeconomic variables affect the levels of cost efficiency. Este trabajo examina la eficiencia de costes para el caso particular del sector público municipal español, concretamente, para el caso de los municipios canarios, poniendo especial énfasis en áreas relacionadas con la condición financiera y diferentes tipologías de deuda, teniendo en cuenta las características propias que estos municipios poseen, como un índice turístico elevado. En primer lugar, se utiliza el método de orden m para evaluar la eficiencia de costes de 77 municipios de las Islas Canarias, para el período 2008-12. En la segunda etapa, examinamos el efecto producido en la eficiencia de costes por diferentes tipologías de endeudamiento (largo plazo, corto plazo, financiero y comercial) junto con otras variables financieras, económicas, políticas y de calidad, utilizando el modelo desarrollado por Simar y Wilson (2007), basado en una regresión truncada con datos de panel. Nuestro análisis empírico muestra que en tiempos de crisis existe una relación significativa entre los componentes de la condición financiera y la eficiencia de costes. En particular, concluye que mientras la eficiencia de los costes municipales aumenta con la deuda comercial, disminuye con la deuda financiera. Además, mostramos que ciertas variables socioeconómicas afectan los niveles de eficiencia de costes.

A balanced scorecard for assessing a strategic plan in a clinical laboratory.

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a tool for strategic management that is used in many companies and organizations worldwide, both in the public and private sector. With this purpose it has also been used in healthcare organizations and institutions but there are not many studies on the implementation of BSC methodology in the day-to-day clinical laboratory. This review shows the strategy for the development of a BSC, which includes theoretical perspective objectives, as well as some indicators and goals with which the monitoring and quantitative measurement of the achievements of a strategic plan in a clinical laboratory can be done. Moreover, the results of the indicators allow the prioritization of the initiatives to be implemented each year. The methodology for the development of the proposed BSC includes the following steps: definition of theoretical objectives of each of the perspectives most used in the management of a clinical laboratory (customers, financial, internal processes and learning) taking into account the vision and the organizational model of the laboratory; creation of a strategic map of perspective objectives; definition of the relevant indicators to follow up on the objectives in a quantitative manner and establishment of the goals. Whether or not the laboratory is a reference laboratory, in which specific and infrequent analysis and health population programs are performed, is another fact to take into account. In this review a BSC for a reference clinical laboratory of the Spanish public sector is shown.

Modelos alternativos para explicar la evolución del gasto público español

El artículo contrasta empíricamente diferentes modelos alternativos, con variables tanto desde el lado de la oferta como de la demanda, para estudiar la evolución del gasto público en España en el período 1964-2016. Se utiliza la metodología habitual de raíces unitarias y cointegración en series temporales para contrastar los modelos, utilizando como base modelos de retardo distribuido autorregresivo para el largo plazo y modelos de corrección de errores para el corto. De los tres modelos considerados, el que mejor explica el comportamiento del sector público español es el modelo de hacienda pública al que se le ha añadido la variable explicativa de la burocracia.

Spanish Public Procurement: legislation, open data source and extracting valuable information of procurement announcements

Open Data in Public Administrations and, in particular, the publications of public procurement (tenders) is a source of valuable information for the decision-making procedure. The analysis of public tenders can provide valuable information for the different stakeholders: politicians, public managers, project managers, executives and, indirectly, citizens. Open Data allows the application of Business Intelligent and massive data processing techniques. This study presents the current situation of the Spanish Public Procurement processes and its open data sources available for citizens. The focus of the study is the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) and tender submission related data. The European and Spanish legislation which applies to this topic is collected. The Spanish Public Sector Contracting Platform, which is the web platform where public procurement announcements and their resolutions are published, is explained. The information can be very useful for researchers who want to carry out studies applying massive data processing techniques. A use case is presented using the open data of that web platform with different approaches to demonstrate its usefulness in a Business Intelligent context. Examples describing quantitative, geographic, sectorial competitiveness and interregional mobility analysis are presented illustrating possible applications.

Sustainability accounting regulation in Spanish public sector organizations

In 2011, the Spanish government made sustainability accounting mandatory for public sector organizations. This paper documents why, despite the new legislation, the quantity and quality of sustainability accounting practices remains low.

Environmental Criteria in the Spanish Public Works Procurement Process.

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is defined as a process of contracting products, services, and works with the least possible damage to the environment during their life cycle. In order to improve the knowledge about GPP, a study of the use of environmental tendering criteria in the Spanish public construction sector has been performed. The results of this study show that the use of environmental criteria in Spanish public sector construction procurement is low in comparison to a certain group of countries, known as “Green 7”, in the European Union. Environmental criteria is the fourth criterion in importance, but its weight in the global of the process is much lower than other criteria such as price, memory of the construction process and the delivery time. National administrations use environmental criteria more frequently because they have more resources and staff training about environmental issues. Environmental criteria are more used in the tendering of civil projects and works whose budget exceeds ten million euro due to the environmental impact of these kind and/or size of projects.

Employees' perceptions of high-performance work systems and innovative behaviour: The role of exploratory learning

This paper analyses the influence of employees' perceptions of high-performance work systems (HPWSs) on employees' exploratory learning and innovative behaviour. Furthermore, the mediating role of exploratory learning in this relationship has also been studied. To achieve these objectives, a quantitative analysis was conducted with a sample of 304 researchers from the Spanish public sector. Results showed the relevance of employees' perceptions of HPWSs in promoting exploratory learning and employees' innovative behaviour. The mediating role of exploratory learning in the relationship was assessed. The paper mentions the importance of workers' perceptions on the implementation of HPWSs and their impact on employees' behaviour. The paper also presents practical and theoretical implications.

The Effectiveness of Reforms in Public Sector Accounting and Financial Management: The Case of Spain, 2010-2015

This paper interprets through theoretical lenses the public sector financial management reforms adopted in Spain between 2010 and 2015. In this period, coping with intense external pressure, the country passed many fiscally-oriented reforms to escape the 2008 crisis including a change in the constitution. We study the changes that have been adopted in three key public accounting and financial management areas: budgeting, reporting and auditing. Our main research question is whether this series of reforms are likely to have had both a disruptive and positive impact in the Spanish public sector management model. We approach the question in the light of three theoretical contexts: the resource dependence model, the logic of discipline and the leadership-task perspective. Our analysis does not support a strong affirmative answer to the question. The fiscal crisis has been averted but it appears that it is more because of discretionary consolidation efforts rather than the result of adopting structural policies. Our work also highlights some dimensions in which Spain is lagging behind leading practices in the EU. Value for money auditing and accountability standards are still low and the independence of certain critical bodies is not sufficiently protected.

The Effectiveness of Reforms in Public Sector Accounting and Financial Management: The Case of Spain, 2010-2015

This paper interprets through theoretical lenses the public sector financial management reforms adopted in Spain between 2010 and 2015. In this period, coping with intense external pressure, the country passed many fiscally-oriented reforms to escape the 2008 crisis including a change in the constitution. We study the changes that have been adopted in three key public accounting and financial management areas: budgeting, reporting and auditing. Our main research question is whether this series of reforms are likely to have had both a disruptive and positive impact in the Spanish public sector management model. We approach the question in the light of three theoretical contexts: the resource dependence model, the logic of discipline and the leadership-task perspective. Our analysis does not support a strong affirmative answer to the question. The fiscal crisis has been averted but it appears that it is more because of discretionary consolidation efforts rather than the result of adopting structural policies. Our work also highlights some dimensions in which Spain is lagging behind leading practices in the EU. Value for money auditing and accountability standards are still low and the independence of certain critical bodies is not sufficiently protected.

The effects of the economic crisis on public research: Spanish budgetary policies and research organizations

The economic crisis of recent years provides an extremely valuable context for the study of the effective role which R&D policies have had for governments, both as a potential tool for exiting from the crisis and as an object of fiscal consolidation. The discourse of governments and international organizations often connect actions to cope with the crisis with reforms and changes in many areas, such as R&D. However, in practice overarching fiscal consolidation policies could be damaging opportunities to establish government strategies to reform and improve the efficiency of the sector.This paper analyses the impact of the crisis on Spanish R&D budgets and on a public research system characterised by low organizational autonomy and limited strategic capacity. We argue that the fiscal consolidation measures adopted have reduced the capacity of governments to direct the public R&D system. Budget cuts, together with regulations emphasizing administrative controls, have reduced the government's capacity to define spending priorities, limited the ability of research organizations to adapt to the new situation and increased the levels of uncertainty within the system and reduced trust among actors.When the policy dilemma between control and reform is resolved in favour of the former, it is likely that public research organizations will lose autonomy as a collateral effect of the crisis. We argue that the Spanish public sector research system is poorly equipped to resist the crisis and adapt to an environment of shrinking resources. In this sense, the lesson to be learned may be that organizational attributes are apparently critical in the long term and that autonomy should not be undermined.