Procuring Complex Performance in the UK Defence Sector

Public and private organizations are transitioning from buying or selling products to procuring or selling complex, long-term integrated solutions consisting of bun-dles of interrelated products and services (Wise and Baumgartner, 1999; Davies et al., 2007). In response to an increasing demand for innovative solutions and a shortage of public funding, governments around the world are increasingly turning to public-private relationships as the principal method for delivering public sector infrastructure and associated services (Broadbent and Laughlin, 2005; Zheng et al., 2008). For instance, the UK has seen a sharp increase in so-called Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) to deliver public sector infrastructure and associated services across sectors such as healthcare, transport and education (Ratcliffe, 2004)