Open Value Creation as a Trust Signal in Government Procurement: Identifying GovTech Archetypes

Abstract

Public procurement emphasizes fairness, accountability, transparency, and reusability. To meet these standards, tenders often involve complex awarding processes that pose challenges for non-established players. Small and medium-sized enterprises must therefore find ways to signal their capabilities, legitimacy, and ability to meet requirements—especially when competing with well-connected, established firms. Open Value Creation (OVC) offers a potential signaling mechanism. This study explores whether GovTech startups—technology ventures serving the public sector—use OVC to address these challenges. Based on 101 semi-structured interviews with GovTech representatives in Germany, we identify four OVC archetypes: (i) Believers, (ii) Pragmatists, (iii) Realists, and (iv) Refusers. Our findings show that OVC is widely seen as a way to build legitimacy, transparency, and trust with public clients, reduce information asymmetries, and improve access to reputation-driven procurement markets. Signaling strategies centered on OVC thus play a key role on the supply side of public procurement.