Public sector e-procurement: a study of benefits from e-markets in the local government sector

Procuring goods and services through e-markets can have profound effects on organisations in terms of the benefits e-markets deliver to them. In the local government sector, the adoption and implementation of electronic government initiatives to increase the effectiveness of how public services are delivered and the need to address inefficiencies in their procurement function have been two of the key drivers of e-market adoption. Although a number of studies have looked at some of the prospective and realised benefits e-markets offer organisations in the private sector, to date, few studies have examined the procurement benefits that public sector organisations gain from e-market participation. This exploratory study uses an e-market procurement benefits framework to examine the types of benefits local authorities gain from procuring through e-markets that operate in the local government sector. E-markets were found to provide a number of benefits to local authorities that correspond to the operational, managerial and strategic components of the e-market procurement benefits framework.