Title: Full and open competition in public procurement: a noble lie

Authors: Christopher L. Atkinson; Clifford McCue; Eric Prier

Addresses: Department of Administration and Law, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, Florida 32514, USA; Contributing Faculty, Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401, USA ' School of Public Administration, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, Florida 33431, USA ' Department of Political Science, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, 3200 College Ave., Davie, FL 33314-7714, USA

Abstract: The notion that the US federal government provides equal opportunity for all businesses to potentially receive contracts may be, as discussed in Plato's Republic, a noble lie. In this context, the noble lie represents government's attempt to advance an agenda that is ostensibly in the public interest yet is empirically untrue. Using the 'full and open competition' designation and number of offers as a measure of actual competition for government contracts, this research shows that competitive contracting by the US federal government is more an ideal than actual practice. Based on these findings, it is asserted that full and open competition is consistent with a noble lie, existing as an ideal not regularly attained, but nonetheless offered in service of other ends. Contextualising and linking the noble lie with trust signals areas for future research regarding competition in public procurement.

Keywords: full and open competition; number of bids/proposals received; noble lie; federal contracting; trust; public procurement.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPM.2023.130744

International Journal of Procurement Management, 2023 Vol.17 No.2, pp.204 - 228

Received: 15 Mar 2022
Accepted: 13 Aug 2022
Published online: 04 May 2023 *

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