End-user engagement within innovative public procurement practices: A case study on public-private partnership procurement

The purpose of this paper is to establish a model for an end-user engagement process within innovative public procurement practices. Even though the importance of the public service end-user has been recognized by researchers and policy makers for some time, there's a genuine lack of commonly acknowledged user engagement tools for both procurer's and supplier's practical implementation. We focus on the way value creation can be enhanced through actively engaging end-users as co-creators of value in public procurement. The study employs an intensive single-case methodology, where the findings are based on qualitative data gathered on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) -based school property procurement in Finland. The end-user's value potential does not rest only with creating individual user value but also with increasing e.g. the public service's social, environmental and political value. Our findings support the existing theoretical understanding according to which the most significant end-user value is achieved through interactive dialogue in the design phase of the public procurement project. The most significant advantages of active end-user engagement are especially seen in the usability of the provided public service. Study results also indicate positive effects of end-user's independent value creation and the sensation of involvement in the user's individual value experience.