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Quality, qualifications, and the market: Procuring interpretation services in the context of the “refugee crisis”
Author(s) -
Sarter E. K.,
Karamanidou Lena
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
social policy and administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1467-9515
pISSN - 0144-5596
DOI - 10.1111/spol.12475
Subject(s) - procurement , context (archaeology) , interpretation (philosophy) , competition (biology) , quality (philosophy) , business , constraint (computer aided design) , service (business) , refugee , public service , public economics , economics , market economy , public relations , marketing , political science , law , mechanical engineering , paleontology , ecology , philosophy , epistemology , computer science , engineering , biology , programming language
Contracting of services has become increasingly important over the last few decades. Against this background, public contracts play an indispensable role in setting standards for services as well as in the regulation of labour. This article explores public tendering strategies for a specific service, interpretation in the context of asylum and international protection. Based on an empirical study of tendering strategies of two public agencies in Greece, it analyses core issues related to working conditions and service quality, namely, the importance given to the price and the use of stipulations relating to working conditions and qualifications. The findings reveal that even under high budgetary constraints, individual agencies may seek to strategically counteract a price‐driven competition and point to the importance of the structure of the market as an external constraint.