Try a Little Tendering: Institutional, Political, and Financial Influence on Local Contracting in Norway

Abstract

The motivations behind local government contracting are an area of theoretical and empirical interest that can shed light on the forces shaping decision-making in public organizations. This paper examined the role of policy diffusion, political factors, and fiscal stress for local contracting. We used local government data from Norway in the period 2004–2016 containing information on whether the municipal administration used competition in 15 service areas during the last election period. The results indicate that policy diffusion played a significant role in competitive tendering for social services and that municipalities governed by liberal-conservative parties had a higher use of tendering.