The European Union has directed its member states to use procurement to address societal challenges such as climate change. European public clients are therefore increasingly calling for innovative solutions when procuring works, goods, or services. However, set in a context of political influence and regulated by laws, utilizing procurement for development is not without challenges.

In the construction sector, public clients represent a large share of the market, fueling interest in procurement practices that support development. These clients often develop procurement strategies to promote innovation in their inter- organizational projects. Prior research has recognized collaborative procurement strategies as key to fostering innovation in construction projects. These procurement strategies stipulate the formal tools and activities for collaboration that are expected to be implemented and enacted by the inter-organizational project actors.

The process of ‘projectification’ refers to the increased use of projects in functional organizations, turning line work into projects in both public and private sectors. In a construction context, the projectification has mainly affected the organizing of operation and maintenance. Operation and maintenance work was traditionally performed in a continuous manner with in-house resources but are now procured and organized in inter-organizational projects. Consequently, this is one of the contexts that public construction clients are attempting to use procurement to address societal challenges.

However, implementing strategies across different organizational levels presents challenges, as tensions can arise, and projects may not always carry out the intended strategies of their parent organizations. In construction projects, actors from both client and contractor organizations collaborate to interpret and enact the procurement strategies in their specific project context.

This research aims to increase the understanding of public procurement of continuous work and its enactment in inter-organizational projects. To fulfill this aim, the research of this thesis builds on a qualitative research design, with two longitudinal case studies of the Swedish Transport Administration’s road operation and maintenance projects. These case studies investigated two different efforts by the Swedish Transport Administration to use collaborative procurement

strategies to stimulate innovation in its inter-organizational operation and maintenance projects. Adopting a process- and practice-based theoretical approach enabled a focus on the project actors interpreting, adapting, and enacting the plans of the client parent organization.

The findings demonstrate how the procurement of continuous work results in projects exhibiting both temporary and permanent organizational aspects due to their successive, time-constrained contracts. Unlike new-build construction projects, where tasks are completed linearly, operation and maintenance tasks focus on continuous fulfillment. This reflects a shift in project management thinking, emphasizing ongoing task preservation over traditional project completion.

Additionally, the thesis reveals that while procurement strategies can foster innovation, it requires alignment between long-term objectives and immediate project characteristics. Operation and maintenance projects offer opportunities to integrate long-term societal objectives into procurement. The findings highlight the necessity for procurement strategies to be flexible and contextually adapted. Project managers must negotiate and align diverging strategies with local project conditions, recognizing the value of both formal and informal collaborative practices. In summary, the research advocates for viewing procurement as a dynamic and adaptive process rather than a static plan.

The thesis makes several contributions to both theory and practice. It advances the understanding of construction procurement by highlighting the unique dynamics of continuous work organized in operation and maintenance projects. The thesis demonstrates how procurement strategies in operation and maintenance contexts can facilitate incremental and reactive innovations, leveraging these towards responding to broader societal challenges. By analyzing the balance between formal procurement strategies and collaborative practices, the thesis enriches existing research on collaboration in construction.

For practice, the findings emphasize the importance of integrating long-term goals into procurement while allowing for the flexibility needed to address project-specific issues. The thesis also highlights the need of balancing the implementation of formal procurement strategies with the development of informal project-level practices.