Search results

Governments worldwide seek to optimize value in public project bids. Social procurement (SP) has become a global tool for achieving project goals. The purpose of this study is to assess the understanding of SP among contractors and identify its drivers to optimize the value associated with public projects.

A total of 15 major contractors were interviewed to obtain their views on SP, appreciate their current practices and identify the main drivers of SP in projects. A semistructured interview was used to gather relevant data. Neo-institutional theory is the lens of the study used to provide the focus of the research. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic data analysis technique.

The study found that SP is understood as corporate social responsibility and is not handled in a structured manner guided by policies or clearly defined procedures. Additionally, research has shown that compliance requirements, rather than value and goodwill, are the main inspiration for SP practices.

The study’s limitation is the fact that it was conducted in the context of Botswana and only used the interview technique as the solo data collection method. The other limitation is the lack of empirical literature on SP concerning the lack of SP policy in Botswana.

This study raises awareness of the concept of SP among contractors in Botswana and eases its implementation within the industry.

There is strong consensus that the Internet has the potential to positively impact firms, and SMEs in particular; however, not all firms have realized benefits from adoption. The present study extends research in the area by addressing the need to examine the “chain” of variables explaining Internet adoption. We do this by exploring SME owner/manager Internet-related usefulness and ease-of-use cognitions and intention to use the Internet for supplier information management. We also explore the influence of behavioral norms and two broader strategic perspectives, market and learning orientation, on the Internet-related cognitions. Findings have implications for researchers and practitioners by identifying factors that contribute to effectively leveraging the Internet in an important area for SMEs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative framework that will assist in understanding the adoption of digital food shopping. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated the demand for digital shopping, but the adoption of digital shopping for food has not accelerated as fast as in other product categories. This study considered the role of socio-cultural factors to understand the reason for slow adoption of digital technology to access food. A cultural framework that can be used to investigate socio-cultural factors in this context was lacking, however, this paper provides a discussion of social and cultural factors and developed measurement scales to assist in understanding cultural change acceptance in consumers' adoption of digital technology to purchase food.

Using Hayes' process analysis, this paper investigated how cultural acceptance – mediated by consumer affection and appeal and measuring the moderated effects of digital trust (DT) – determined the eventual impact on consumer intention to adopt digital food retailing. This paper also considered moderated mediation with parallel mediations (consumer affection and appeal, digital convenience (DC) and consumer digital readiness) interacting with DT and consumer learning.

The authors found that cultural acceptance of digital technology (CADT) is an antecedent to the adoption of digital shopping for food, but this is also mediated by consumers' appeal and affection for digital technology and consumers' digital readiness.

This study also indicates that DT influences consumer appeal and affection (CAA), especially amongst female consumers.

The paper represents an empirical investigation of a new conceptual framework that considers socio-cultural factors to understand consumers' use of digital technology in food shopping which has been an existing knowledge gap in current literature.