Outsourcing of public services is under heightened scrutiny. Public managers are asked to conduct thorough “make or buy” assessments to help assure deliverability, affordability, and value for money of public services. The naivety of this request dramatically overlooks the subtlety and challenge faced by public managers. In this paper we connect a range of differently configured contractual agreements to underlying components of “value for money”, namely, the pursuit of economy, efficiency and effectiveness. We set out a framework consisting of conceptual models and the corresponding decision tree to allow comparison across alternative sourcing strategies, considering both the associated transaction costs and transaction benefits. We also use simulation methods to capture uncertainty while establishing the practicality of the framework. This study advocates for moving beyond the polarized ‘make or buy’ debate with more instrumental considerations of “how to buy” from the perspective of the public manager.

中文翻译：

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超越“制造”或“购买”：评估公共服务交付的性价比

公共服务外包受到严格审查。公共管理者被要求进行彻底的“自制或外购”评估，以帮助确保公共服务的可交付性、可负担性和物有所值。这一幼稚的要求极大地忽视了公共管理者所面临的微妙性和挑战。在本文中，我们将一系列不同配置的合同协议与“物有所值”的基本要素联系起来，即追求经济、效率和效果。我们制定了一个由概念模型和相应的决策树组成的框架，以允许对替代采购策略进行比较，同时考虑相关的交易成本和交易利益。我们还使用模拟方法来捕获不确定性，同时建立框架的实用性。本研究主张超越“自制还是外购”两极分化的争论，从公共管理者的角度对“如何购买”进行更实用的考虑。