A critical necessity for effective competitive selection is that the procurement process must be clear and visible to all stakeholders. This transparency is crucial as it fosters confidence among ...potential bidders across different levels, ultimately enhancing procurement performance. This research aimed to assess how transparency impacts the procurement performance of local government institutions. The study utilized a case study design and employed purposive and simple random sampling methods to select 80 respondents from Moyo District Local Government (MDLG). Qualitative data was analyzed through content analysis, while quantitative data was assessed using descriptive statistics and a multiple regression model. Findings indicated that publication of procurement plan and budget was significant to at β=0.258, P<0.05. Access to key procurement information was significant at β=0.193, p<0.05. Open communication was also significant at β=0.169, p<0.05. The study concluded that ensuring transparency while conducting procurement processes improves performance in terms of cost optimization and purchase of quality products which are delivered on time. The study recommended MDLG to provide timely and sufficient information to the public and other stakeholders most especially about upcoming contracts and status of ongoing procurement processes through publication on public notice boards and online government procurement portals for easy accessibility.
The paradoxical logic of transparency and
mediation
Transparency is the metaphor of our time. Whether in government
or corporate governance, finance, technology, health or the media -
it is ...ubiquitous today, and there is hardly a current debate that
does not call for more transparency. But what does this word
actually stand for and what are the consequences for the life of
individuals? Can knowledge from the arts, and its play of
visibility and invisibility, tell us something about the
paradoxical logics of transparency and mediation? This Obscure
Thing Called Transparency gathers contributions by
international experts who critically assess the promises and perils
of transparency today.
Contributors: Emmanuel Alloa (University of Fribourg), Loup
Cellard (Melbourne Law School), Riccardo Donati (Università di
Salerno), Mark Fenster (University of Florida), Sara Guindani
(Université Paris 7), David Heald (University of Glasgow), Vlad
Ionescu (UHasselt/PXL MAD), Dorota Mokrosinska (Leiden University),
Herman Parret (KU Leuven), John Pitseys (UCLouvain), Natacha
Pfeiffer (Université Saint-Louis), Philippe Van Parijs (UCLouvain),
Bart Verschaffel (Ghent University), Patrick Vandermeersch (KU
Leuven), Christophe Van Gerrewey (EPFL).
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed
Content).
The countries of Central Europe in the first round for admission to the European Union have all established constitutional, electoral democracies and market economies. However, much remains to be ...done to achieve fully consolidated democratic states. This study documents the weaknesses of public oversight and participation in policymaking in Hungary and Poland, two of the most advanced countries in the region. It discusses five alternative routes to accountability including European Union oversight, constitutional institutions such as presidents and courts, devolution to lower-level governments, the use of neo-corporatist bodies, and open-ended participation rights. It urges more emphasis on the fifth option, public participation. Case studies of the environmental movement in Hungary and of student groups in Poland illustrate these general points. The book reviews the United States' experience of open-ended public participation and draws some lessons for the transition countries from the strengths and weaknesses of the American system.
Why do governance reforms in developing democracies so often fail, and when might they succeed? When Democracies Deliver offers a dynamic framework for assessing the effectiveness and durability of ...policy change. Drawing on detailed analyses of public sector reforms in Brazil and Argentina, this book challenges conventional wisdom to reveal that incremental changes sequenced over time prove more effective in promoting accountability, increasing transparency, and strengthening institutions than comprehensive overhauls pushed through by political will. Developing an innovative theory that integrates cognitive-psychological insights about decision making with research on institutional change, Katherine Bersch shows how political and organizational factors can shape reform strategies and information processing. Through extensive interviews and field research, Bersch traces how two competing strategies have determined the different trajectories of institutions responsible for government contracting in health care and transportation. When Democracies Deliver offers a fresh insight on the perils of powering and the benefits of gradual reform.
It is normally assumed that international security regimes such as the United Nations can reduce the risk of war by increasing transparency among adversarial nations. The more adversaries understand ...each other's intentions and capabilities, the thinking goes, the less likely they are to be led to war by miscalculations and unwarranted fears. But how is transparency provided, how does it actually work, and how effective is it in preserving or restoring peace? In Promoting Peace with Information, Dan Lindley provides the first scholarly answer to these important questions. Lindley rigorously examines a wide range of cases, including U.N. peacekeeping operations in Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Namibia, and Cambodia; arms-control agreements, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and the historical example of the Concert of Europe, which sought to keep the peace following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Making nuanced arguments based on extensive use of primary sources, interviews, and field research, Lindley shows when transparency succeeds in promoting peace, and when it fails. His analysis reveals, for example, that it is surprisingly hard for U.N. buffer-zone monitors to increase transparency, yet U.N. nation-building missions have creatively used transparency to refute harmful rumors and foster democracy. For scholars, Promoting Peace with Information is a major advance into the relatively uncharted intersection of institutionalism and security studies. For policymakers, its findings will lead to wiser peacekeeping, public diplomacy, and nation building.
Consumers abandon their online purchases at an e-commerce website partly due to the lack of information transparency of the website. We identify the antecedents of consumers’ perceived information ...transparency of an e-commerce website and its effects on consumers’ online purchase intention. We collected data through a scenario-based survey conducted in a laboratory setting. We found that (1) product transparency, vendor transparency, and transaction transparency significantly influence perceived information transparency; (2) perceived information transparency significantly increases consumers’ online purchase intention; and (3) perceived risk partially mediates the effects of perceived information transparency on purchase intention.
Over a decade since transparency was introduced as a first-class concept in computing, transparency is still an emerging concept that is quite poorly understood. Also, despite existing research ...contributions, transparency is yet to be incorporated into the software engineering practice, and the promise it holds remains unfulfilled. Although there is evidence of increasing stakeholders' demand for software and process transparency, the realization of such demand is yet to be fully witnessed within the software engineering practice. There is a need to uncover transparency and how it has so far been conceptualized, operationalized, and challenges faced. We applied a systematic literature review method in search of articles published between January 2006 and March 2022. This study reports a systematic review of the explicit conceptualization and application of transparency in 18 articles out of a total of 162 selected for review. Our study found that transparency remains an under-researched non-functional quality requirement concept, especially as it impacts information and software systems development. Of the 18 articles reviewed, only three studies representing 16.67% conceptualized transparency in software development and focused on the transparency of software artifacts. The remaining 83.33% of studies conceptualized transparency in information systems, focusing on general information and fully functional information systems. Transparency is yet to be fully explored from a theoretical gathering point of view and as a non-functional indicator of software quality hence its slow adoption and incorporation into mainstream software practice. Apart from providing a catalog of transparency factors that stakeholders can use to evaluate transparency achievement, the paper proposed a roadmap to enhance transparency implementation and also provides future research directions.
"This book discusses contemporary accountability and transparency mechanisms by presenting a selection of case studies. The authors deal with various problems connected to controlling public ...institutions and incumbents’ responsibility in state bodies. The work is divided into three parts. Part I: Law examines the institutional and objective approach. Part II: Fairness and Rights considers the subject approach, referring to a recipient of rights. Part III: Authority looks at the functional approach, referring to the executors of law. Providing insights into increasing understanding of various concepts, principles, and institutions characteristic of the modern state, the book makes a valuable contribution to the area of comparative constitutional change. It will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers, and policy-makers working in the areas of constitutional law and politics."
