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Public procurement is a crucial activity undertaken by the public sector. However, public procurement entails a wide range of transaction costs. While many papers focus on the ex-ante transaction costs, it is equally important to evaluate the types of ex-post transaction costs. The disputes stemming from conflicts between procuring authorities and proposers often bring additional costs to both parties. One of the ways to ensure that the procuring authority wins the dispute is using the services of an external law firm to represent the procuring authority in the review process. The aim of the paper is to examine the extent of the use of external law services in the public-procurement review process by procuring authorities and proposers in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic. The focus is also on the impact the use of external law firms in the review process may have on the length of the review process and the outcome of the dispute. Our results suggest that while the use of the external law firm may lead to a higher success rate of the review process on the side of a procuring authority, the same does not apply to proposers. There were no conclusive findings regarding the impact of the outsourcing on the length of the review process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on sustainable public procurement (SPP) and its role in public procurement of the members of the Visegrad Group (Hungarian, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic). Sustainable public procurement is a current trend in public purchasing around the world. The European Union's sustainable development policy, which respects the objectives of the 2030 Agenda, seeks to influence the public procurement policies of the members of the European Union. Every country, including the Visegard Group countries is trying to implement sustainable development criteria in its procurement process and to change legislation. The aim of this paper is to compare the implementation of public procurement in the Czech Republic with other members of the Visegrad Group (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary) and analyse how the public procurement (tenders) respects the criteria of sustainable public procurement in the case of the selected public procurements (tenders) in rail transport. We analyse the public procurement process and investigate the possibility/appropriateness of using social responsibility criteria in the individual phases of the procurement process (award criteria). The results show that there are different methods of implementing SPP in the V4 countries. There are significant differences between the regions. Based on the results of our research and analysis of the selected tenders, we concluded that the principle of social responsibility needs to be reflected in all steps, i.e. in the formulation of the subject of the public contract, the preparation of the contractual terms and the selection of evaluation criteria in their qualitative form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings of a pilot research study that focused on a selected area of e-government – digitalization of core government services to citizens (G2C) in selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries – namely in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. Taking into account the literature available to date, it is a first attempt of its kind, even if mainly a qualitative study. The findings clearly indicate that the level of digitalization of the administrative services for citizens is rather low. All three countries are roughly at the same level of electronic government development (with the Czech Republic slightly ahead), despite vastly different strategies and levels of centralization. This could change in the future, after the results of their respective national strategies become visible, and we are also interested in applying our method to other CEE countries, with the clear aim of refining it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of Czech small critically indebted municipalities, which has been neglected in the European discourse after successful European consolidation reforms. The Czech Republic is one of the Central European countries where there is no relevant debate on the mandatory amalgamation of small municipalities that are often faced with a combination of multiple risk factors. This paper aims to analyze a sample of the Czech municipalities that are threatened by a combination of their small size and critical indebtedness. A research of the sample focuses on a) the identification of the reasons for critical indebtedness, b) the impact of critical indebtedness on the delivery of services and local democracy and c) the options and strategies to overcome the issues related to critical indebtedness. Methodologically, the paper is a multiple-case study of three small critically indebted municipalities of the Karlovy Vary region, which was considered the worst region in 2012 in terms of the share of critically indebted municipalities, with several long-term critically indebted municipalities on its territory. Based on the media monitoring and economic criteria, the municipalities of Prameny, Bublava and Nebanice have been chosen. The main finding of our research is the identification of so-called endangered chains: 1) small municipalities with low revenues resulting in 2) limited administrative and expert capacity that contributes to 3) a mistake in a large investment project resulting in 4) the economic collapse of the municipality that endangers the provision of services, and in the case of 5) insufficient social capital this can lead to agony of local self-government and the collapse of the municipality. According to the findings, the examined municipalities of Nebanice and Bublava correspond to the chain link 4, and in the case of Prameny it is possible to speak about the chain link 5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the role of public and private employment-service agencies in contracting-out for employment case management under principal-agency relation to understand young third-country immigrants' transition to work in Czechia, Poland, and Hungary. Existing research pointed to contracting-out as a major trend in public-service reforms when the government (principal) hires private employment agencies (agents) to perform service delivery, but overall the control of standards and the accountability to the public remains with the authority. Although the principal-agency relation shows human beings as rational and opportunist in corporate governance, there is still little research in CEE countries explaining the role of public and private employment agencies under principal-agency relation in contracting-out for case management to understand young third-country immigrants' transition to work. Based on a qualitative cross-national case-oriented research approach with fewer-country comparison, documents and scholastic texts are collected and analyzed by means of a document and content analysis technique to fill in this gap. The findings show that open information, regulation, and monitoring administrative devices are a major perceived influence in principal-agency relational governance with a lack of cooperation that may impair the quality and service when looking at issues such as employment-related transition of young third-country immigrants and socio-economically disadvantaged groups in a contracting-out setting. The study demonstrated certain decentralized new public administration governance similarities but dissimilarities from the country's institutional context. The outcome points to regulatory administrative devices to target agencies' behavior and young vulnerable people's need for paid work. This is relevant to performance monitoring in contemporary fluid society targeting benefits and scarce resources that may not only constrain ethnic minorities' upward mobility, but the economy and the social cohesion process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to compare the results of 4 selected audit areas of the SAO, namely audits carried out in the domain of the state budget revenues, state property, state-owned enterprises and state funds. The hypothesis is that the findings of audits on the revenue side of the state budget have resulted in the largest number of legislative changes within the period under review. As part of the assessment of the development of the impact of the SAO activity measured by the number of government-imposed corrective measures, it was also found that the benefits of audit findings have increased and their usability has risen noticeably since 2005. By analysing the selected audit areas, the first established hypothesis was confirmed when it was found that the largest number of legislative changes was made in the area of the state budget revenues. In this domain, areas of system failures and implementations of the imposed recommendations were analysed additionally, with the aim to uncover the most problematic areas and to assess the overall implementation of the imposed recommendations. The hypothesis in this respect was that the recommended remedies were mostly met. Within the area of the state budget revenues, based on the publicly available information and the auditees' opinions it was found out that most of the recommendations were met. The second hypothesis was met, as well. The presented paper analyses both the government's resolutions, audit findings and conclusions, annual reports, EU reports, and selected views of the auditees. Within the audit areas, the number of submitted criminal notifications and notifications to the tax authority is also quantified. The usefulness of the results is based on the fact that the audits in the assessed areas were focused on the audit of legality with elements of the performance audit, though the best results in the domain of legality were brought by audits in the area of the state budget revenues. In this domain, it is therefore appropriate to focus more on the audit issues related to legality, as evidenced by the number of corrective measures in which the government has imposed a legislated solution to the given issue. Conversely, for audits of state assets (the remaining three groups), it would make more sense to strengthen the focus of these audits on the performance-related risks (the so-called 3E). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with crowdfunding as a new and alternative mechanism of nonprofit funding which has thus far attracted little scholarly attention in the Czech context. It focuses on the factors that affect a campaign's overfunding rate and determines whether these factors are consistent among different forms of project creators. A comprehensive analysis of reward-based crowdfunding in the Czech Republic was conducted based on the data from 617 projects using the Czech crowdfunding platform Hithit that were categorized according to the status of the project creator. Using binary logistic regression, a statistic estimation on an overall sample and on a sample of purely nonprofit projects was executed in order to observe if the outcomes differ. The key empirical finding is that NGOs tend to raise fewer additional funds than other forms of project creators. Except for certain specific factors, the effects of the examined factors were consistent across all samples. This new and innovative approach to resource insufficiency by using alternative funding sources presents an important and unexplored research gap in the (post-) transitive context of nonprofit sector studies, enabling a view of policy implications for Czech NGOs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the profiles and work tasks of officials in central and regional administration in the Czech Republic. It analyzes data from surveys among the officials of eleven ministries in 2013 (N = 1351) and fourteen regional offices in 2012 (N = 783). First, the profile of ministerial officials (MOs) is compared with that of regional-level officials (ROs). In accordance with our hypotheses, on average it is found that MOs are, when compared to ROs, older, more educated and have spent more time in civil service. Th ere is also a higher proportion of men in ministries than in regional offices. On the other hand, ministerial work seems to be affected by higher levels of fluctuation than jobs in the regional offices. Second, we compare work tasks of MOs and ROs. As expected, MOs are more involved in analytical tasks and research than ROs. In contrast, ROs are more likely to implement policies or programs, direct and monitor programs or lower-level bodies, provide advice for political bodies of the region, negotiate with elected politicians, communicate with citizens and provide methodological guidance, train or lecture. Contrary to our theoretical expectations, we found a strong positive correlation between analytical and brokering tasks (communication and negotiation). We thus reject the hypothesis that analytical tasks are at odds with negotiating and communication. Instead, it is concluded that most officials are multitaskers, and it is especially so in regional offices. It is hypothesized that this might be caused by the fact that regional offices are smaller and have a lower capacity to specialize [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although e-government as a research topic is rather embedded in public-administration literature, and coordination of and through e-government is visible in European countries, coordination of and through e-government has not been paid much attention. Consequently this paper deals with this topic. Its text outlines emerging coordination practices that can be observed in European countries, and it also indicates issues using the Czech e-government development and some key national initiatives as examples. Th e presented text concludes that although elements of strategic planning may become embedded and institutional and regulatory mechanisms stabilized in the country, other issues such as a weak accountability culture may exist and hinder coordination practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper on the case of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic examines the effect of information nudging on changing the behavior of medicine users with unused medicines. We introduce a new concept of nudge into the theory as an explanatory tool used in the form of subsumption. In our explanatory model, explanans represents the initial conditions of research (C). The explanatory theory of ET is nudge theory. Explanandum E is the explained phenomena. The initial conditions consist of two classes of conditions - namely, C0 and C1. The C0 conditions are those conditions that characterize the state where drug users (respondents) act without the information provided by us. C1 conditions are those states where we provide boring information to the medicine users in the form of a leaflet on how to dispose of unused medicines. We examine how the conditions change the behavior of users (respondents) based on the change in the behavior of users (respondents). Empirical analysis shows that nudging in the form of additional information has a positive effect on behavior. Respondents who received additional information in the information campaign about the proper handling of medicines showed a 23.4% increase in the declared return of unused medicines (condition Cl) compared to condition C0 when no nudging was done. We find that respondents who check the expiry date are more likely to hand in medicines at the pharmacy. The more information people have about how to manage unused and expired medicines, the more medicines are returned to the pharmacy. Similarly, people who have enough information return unused and expired medicines to the pharmacy. Therefore, nudging in the form of additional information can be seen as an appropriate public policy tool to increase the effective management of unused medicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health technology assessment (HTA) has become the systematic evaluation of health technology's properties and effects that inform decision-makers. The implementation and expansion of HTA can contribute to slowing down burgeoning healthcare costs. In the Czech Republic, elements of HTA are quite standardly used in pharmacoeconomics, but questions arise on the use of HTA of medical devices. The theoretical framework developed is followed by a case study of the Czech Republic to assess whether the use of HTA of medical devices in the Czech Republic is implemented. This study uses publicly available resources, mainly public health acts and public notices related to HTA. We examined the institutionalisation of HTA for medical devices (HTA applied only at a selected area of medical devices) in the Czech Republic and compared Czech's HTA principles of medical devices to the HTA Core Model. It was found that the HTA process used for medical devices is very limited in the Czech Republic. Our data show that HTA was officially established, but in reality, the medical devices have not been assessed following HTA principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economies of scale are a standard topic in economic theory, frequently applied, for example, in the analysis of monopolies. They exist when a firm optimising its production costs while facing some fixed costs enjoys lower per-unit production costs as the production increases. Similarly to other production units municipalities have to be large enough to minimise average costs. We analysed the local public services in 205 municipalities with extended powers in the Czech Republic for the first time in this context, using regression analysis, a correlation diagram of local public services and statistical analysis. The paper examines this issue using data from 2008 to 2012. Our analysis showed that economies of scale cannot be clearly identified for local services in municipalities with extended powers in the Czech Republic and that the size of a municipality is not a key factor influencing the provision of local services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author of the study presents a new approach to the study of dynamic changes in society. He calls it the historical-evolutionist and retrograde approach. The historical-evolutionist approach is based on the existence of the ontology of the problem. It is based on the reality of evolution. This approach makes it possible to reveal on the historical-evolutionary trajectory the key events (factors) that influenced the historical development and to retrospectively identify their historical significance. On the historical-evolutionary trajectory, we can retrogradely trace various events such as: a node on the trajectory, and a breaking point on an evolutionary trajectory, evolution path branching. disruption, dead end, evolutionary island, embedded history, as well as a form of retrograde revealed possible worlds. These concepts are then demonstrated on the example of the history of public administration in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the growing pressure on public budgets, many countries introduced various private-sector-inspired management practices to improve the performance of publicly funded health systems. Regardless, the non-negligible share of health-care spending is still considered wasteful, and the search for efficiency gains in healthcare is still relevant. The relevance even increases in the context of events related to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in 2020, presenting new challenges for performance management in hospitals. Considering the gaps between the environmental settings of various countries, a finding of one universal theory of effective hospital management is unlikely. The contextual examination of hospital management on the national level and knowledge-sharing is then a more suitable approach to aid the practitioners in search of the most appropriate mix of management practices. This study employed a mixed methodological approach to examine individual aspects of performance management from the hospital management's perspective to identify the areas of potential efficiency gains. The core research phase consisted of on-site visits in three public hospitals taking place since September 2019 with the respondents from various management levels and both clinicians and non-clinicians. During an approximately hour-long session the respondents were asked to fill out the questionnaire examining the aspects of the performance management system employed in their institution (e.g., the scope of measurement, reliability of data, communication of results, engagement of management) and interviewed to examine the rationale of provided responses. The on-site research stage resulted in 87 complete data sets further analyzed using statistical analysis with results interpreted using commentaries and rationales obtained from interviews. The findings were similar among all examined institutions and mostly consistent with similarly natured studies. While the performance measurement appeared to reflect the clinical performance better than the organizational one, it is also perceived as inadequate to the complexity of service. The management seemed to consider performance management for operational purposes rather than being incentive-oriented or exploratory, in line with the perceived lack of connection between the performance measurement and the organizational strategy. Combined with poor communication of performance management principles, this discrepancy appears to contribute to the potential tension between the hospital and clinical management in setting priorities between the economic performance and the quality of care. Overall, these findings should provide insight into aspects influencing performance management employed in public hospitals in the Czech Republic and present the evidence for the discussion of potential efficiency gains in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though participatory budgeting (PB) is often discussed as a tool to bolster the level of civic participation and the quality of democracy, empirical research on the subject offers ambiguous results. In the Czech Republic, PB was introduced 5 years ago, and the number of implemented PBs has since increased substantially. The purpose of this article is to evaluate whether the use of PB is associated with higher voter turnout in municipal and parliamentary elections. Voter turnout in Czech municipalities that implemented PB is analyzed and compared with the control group of municipalities without PB. Considered by type of election, we found that the impact of PB use on voter turnout is higher for local elections than it is for national elections, which is in line with our assumptions. However, our results were significant for Prague districts only. Participatory budgeting could increase voter turnout in local election, but there are other factors that must be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments are responsible for the delivery of a large variety of very different public services. The article is focused on two issues: 1) we try to discover whether the local governments in the Czech Republic prefer to be "producers" or "providers" of the waste-collection services; 2) we test and compare the efficiency of "production" and the efficiency of "provision", and for this purpose we take into account various factors, inter alia inter-municipal cooperation, the existence of hybrid organizations, economies of scale etc. A main goal is to find out what the local governments in the Czech Republic prefer if they decide on the delivery of local services linked to waste management and what factors are the most important ones from the perspective of their potential influence on efficiency. Concerning the data, we analyse linked open data on municipal solid waste expenditure collected by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic and data relating to features of waste collection obtained via a questionnaire-based survey which was carried out at the turn of 2015-2016. The results of the presented analysis show a clear relationship of dependence between the inter-municipal cooperation and the relevant costs, and it confirms the assumption that the Czech local governments undoubtedly prefer the position of "providers" in the field of the local waste management. Paradoxically, the results show that neither internal nor external provision of waste-collection services is a key factor of cost-efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first part of this article surveys the current experience with the use of benchmarking at Czech universities specializing in economics and management. The results indicate that collaborative benchmarking is not used on this level today, but most actors show some interest in its introduction. The expression of the need for it and the importance of benchmarking as a very suitable performance-management tool in less developed countries are the impetus for the second part of our article. Based on an analysis of the current situation and existing needs in the Czech Republic, as well as on a comparison with international experience, recommendations for public policy are made, which lie in the design of a model of a collaborative benchmarking for Czech economics and management in higher-education programs. Because the fully complex model cannot be implemented immediately - which is also confirmed by structured interviews with academics who have practical experience with benchmarking -, the final model is designed as a multi-stage model. This approach helps eliminate major barriers to the implementation of benchmarking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the institute of public procurement a considerable volume of financial resources is allocated. It is therefore in the interest of contracting entities to seek ways of how to achieve an efficient allocation of resources. Some public contract-awarding entities, along with some public-administration authorities in the Czech Republic, believe that the use of a single evaluation criterion (the lowest bid price) results in a more efficient tender for a public contract. It was found that contracting entities in the Czech Republic strongly prefer to use the lowest bid price criterion. Within the examined sample, 86.5 % of public procurements were evaluated this way. The analysis of the examined sample of public contracts proved that the choice of an evaluation criterion, even the preference of the lowest bid price criterion, does not have any obvious impact on the final cost of a public contract. The study concludes that it is inappropriate to prefer the criterion of the lowest bid price within the evaluation of public contracts that are characterised by their complexity (including public contracts for construction works and public service contracts). The findings of the Supreme Audit Office related to the inspection of public contracts indicate that when using the lowest bid price as an evaluation criterion, a public contract may indeed be tendered with the lowest bid price, but not necessarily the best offer in terms of supplied quality. It is therefore not appropriate to use the lowest bid price evaluation criterion to such an extent for the purpose of evaluating work and services. Any improvement to this situation requires a corresponding amendment to the Law on Public Contracts and mainly a radical change in the attitude of the Office for the Protection of Competition towards proposed changes, as indicated within the conclusions and recommendations proposed by this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]