Edinburgh Napier University

  Although the lowest bid procurement philosophy has formed the basis of procurement in public sector building construction, for a long time it has arguably resulted in low-quality construction work. In response, construction stakeholders have sought to explore alternative procurement philosophies. One such philosophy is ‘best value’. In this study undertaken in Korea, the authors explore what is best value in public sector building construction. The literature is used to extract best value criteria that are then ranked by a selection of managers involved in procurement of public buildings. Best value was found to be categorised against six main criteria whose relative weightings vary with building type and, by implication, building functionality.