Prosocial rule-breaking and public value in public procurement: informal practices in pre-tender design and post-contract continuity

Purpose This paper aims to examine how three informal practices in Portuguese public procurement – informal suggestion of invitees, supplier input to specifications and indirect continuity of incumbent resources – emerge and become justified in a highly regulated procurement environment. Design/methodology/approach It uses an interpretive qualitative design based on 26 interviews in Portugal with 21 public-sector managers and five supplier-side managers. Reflexive thematic analysis is combined with pro-social rule-breaking (PSRB) and public value theory; a supplementary KH Coder frequency, concordance and co-occurrence audit assesses lexical convergence and divergence with manually developed themes. Findings The practices arise from tensions between procedural duration and urgency, technical uncertainty and neutrality, reliability and openness and continuity and limits on repeated contracting. Direct rule deviation and ambiguity-based rule-bending are distinguished. Practitioners invoke continuity, technical adequacy, risk reduction and public interest, while the same practices can compress transparency, competition, equal treatment and legitimacy. Social implications Integrity reforms must address how prosocial narratives can normalize practices that both protect services and close markets. Formal, documented and contestable mechanisms are needed for market consultation, continuity planning and technical exceptions. Originality/value The article shows that the same informal procurement practice can produce substantive public value while undermining procedural public value, extending PSRB to a dyadic, market-mediated setting.