How external stakeholders drive the green public procurement practice? An organizational learning perspective
ISSN: 1535-0118
Article publication date: 16 June 2021
Issue publication date: 8 July 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to uncover the black box of the influence mechanism between external stakeholder drivers and green public procurement practice, and meanwhile to explore the moderating role of administrative level in this process. Green public procurement (GPP) has been widely implemented. Existing literature has found that external stakeholder drivers can affect public sectors' GPP practice, however, the definition of its connotation is still unclear, and how external stakeholders affect GPP practice has remained a black box.
Design/methodology/approach
After defining the major external stakeholders, this study develops a multiple mediation theoretical model using survey data from 142 Chinese local public sectors. It aims to uncover the black box of the influence mechanism between external stakeholder drivers and GPP practice and meanwhile explore the moderating effect of administrative levels in this process.
Findings
The results show that external stakeholder drivers have a positive relationship with GPP practices. The knowledge of GPP implementation policies and the knowledge of GPP benefits can both mediate this relationship. This study also finds that the administrative level of public sectors can positively moderate the mediating effect produced by the knowledge of GPP implementation policies and negatively moderate the mediation effect produced by the knowledge of GPP benefits.
Social implications
Local governments need to better encourage public sectors to implement GPP. Managers of public sectors need to pay attention to organizational learning to acquire relevant knowledge on GPP.
Originality/value
This study makes a theoretical contribution to a better understanding of the influence mechanism for GPP practice. This study also provides comparisons of GPP implementation policies between China and European Union.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by The National Social Science Fund of China [Grant number: 15XZZ011] and MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Science [Grant number: 18YJC630218]. The authors express their gratitude to Prof Alessandro Ancarani and anonymous Reviewer for the constructive comments and helps on earlier versions of this paper.
Conflicts of interest. None.
Citation
Liu, J., Ma, Y., Appolloni, A. and Cheng, W. (2021), "How external stakeholders drive the green public procurement practice? An organizational learning perspective", Journal of Public Procurement, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 138-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOPP-04-2020-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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