Co-creation of understanding through early buyer-supplier interaction: Sensemaking and sensegiving in public infrastructure tenders

Over the past decades, public procurement has shifted towards strategic, value-based approaches. These methods allow for a better understanding and alignment of interests between buyers and suppliers in the public domain by fostering early buyer-supplier interaction through formalized dialogues. While extant literature has offered important insights into the benefits of early buyer-supplier interaction, little attention has been given to understanding the practices upon which these actors draw in this interaction. This paper investigates the early interaction between buyers and suppliers in a major infrastructure project using a sensemaking and sensegiving perspective. Drawing on a case study of a Competitive Dialogue procedure in the Netherlands, we identify four interrelated sensemaking and sensegiving practices that form iterative cycles of meaning construction: buyer sensegiving, supplier sensemaking, supplier sensegiving, and buyer sensemaking. By examining how these practices unfold under formal constraints and the competitive pressure of a tender, the study contributes to sensemaking theory by showing how meaning construction operates across organizational boundaries in institutionalized, procedural and competitive settings. We also advance purchasing and supply management research by introducing vocabulary for analyzing early-stage interaction in public tenders. Finally, we contribute to public procurement literature by providing a practice-based perspective on how formal procedures like a competitive dialogue shape the depth, scope, and direction of buyer-supplier interaction in the tender of complex projects.