Effect of e-procurement on service delivery among county Governments in western Kenya

Abstract

Globally, e-procurement has gained popularity especially with the advent of technology. In United States of America for instance, rapid development of e-procurement was reported in early 2000 just before the recession. By the end of the year 2000, it was reported that all state functions were maintaining web presence in at least some stage of their procurement processes with some participating in online bidding. In Kenya, organizations are adopting e-procurement. County governments are not an exception yet they continue to face challenges. Studies in the past have attributed the challenges to delay of disbursement of funding from the national government. Studies have not focused on what e-ordering, e-contracting, e-information sharing and e-sourcing may be contributing to service delivery levels despite the fact that theory argues that e- procurement is expected to lead to better service delivery. The purpose of this study therefore was to establish effect of e-procurement on service delivery among county governments in Western Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to determine the effect of e-contracting, e-ordering, e-information sharing and e-sourcing on service delivery among county governments in western Kenya. The study was guided by Resource Based View theory and Innovation Diffusion theory with the former explaining the view of e-procurement as a technology resource and the latter explaining adoption of the very resource. Correlation research design was adopted. The population comprised all the 200 procurement officers and non procurement officer procurement committee members. Purposive, cluster and random sampling was used to pick a sample of 133 respondents. Data were collected from secondary and primary sources. Reliability of questionnaires was tested on pilot data from 10 respondents which yielded alpha coefficients greater than .701 implying internal consistency. Content validity test was done using expert reviewers. Data analysis was done using Pearson’s correlation and multiple regression analyses. The study findings were that; E-ordering was a positive significant predictor of service delivery (β = .353 (p = .000) implying that it enhances service delivery; E-contracting was a positive significant predictor of service delivery (β = .215 (p = .018) implying that it improves service delivery, E-information sharing was a positive significant driver of service delivery (β = .449 (p = .000) meaning that it enhances service delivery and E-sourcing was a positive significant predictor of service delivery (β = .414 (p = .000) implying that it enhances service delivery. The study concludes that embracing E-ordering, E-contracting, E-information sharing and E-sourcing leads to better service delivery among the county governments. The study recommends that county governments should intensify use of E-ordering, E-contracting, E-information sharing and E-sourcing. The results may be used by policy makers involved in the county governments. Researchers may also pursue further research from this study.