Control and monitoring of outsourced contracts in the public sector: a perspective of contract managers and inspectors of a federal public agency

Abstract

This study aims to verify how the control and monitoring of outsourced contracts of a federal public agency occurs, from the perception of contract manager and inspectors, having as its analysis lens the literature on transaction costs. Therefore, a case study was made in a federal public agency, descriptive and exploratory, and with qualitative approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the inspectors and the contract manager, in addition to document analysis. The results indicate that the analyzed services present low transaction costs (low asset specificity and environmental uncertainty, and high measurability of services), and that the controls are used together, with the prevalence of behavior control. Outcome control is mainly used in the most recent contracts by implementing performance targets, and social control to develop networking or delimit acceptable behaviors by the agency. In addition, it was observed that part of the monitoring activities is transferred to the outsourced companies, corroborating previous studies on the subject, which suggest that the low transaction costs imply the hiring of monitoring functions for the services provided.