Identifying the Backgrounds of Economic Corruption in Public Tenders

This article aims to identify the factors that lead to economic corruption in public tenders. Studying the theoretical literature, the major and minor elements of economic corruption in public tenders were identified. Also, using Delphi method, these factors were confirmed by experts. Four major factors have been identified: rent seeking structure of public tenders, politicizing process of public trends, bureaucratic authority, and weak supervisory mechanisms. In order to determine the significance of each of these factors the multi-criteria decision making including hierarchical analysis (AHP) and TOPSIS were used. It was found that the weak supervisory mechanism played the major role among the four of them. But at end it was clear that the coordination of the four of them resulted in corrupted public tenders.