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This paper aims to explore how social procurement (SP)-related capabilities might be developed within public authorities.

The paper utilizes qualitative research, based upon an inductive research design. This leads to a model to inform future research and practice.

Within the context of a “disconnected and nascent institutional field of practice” (Loosemore et al., 2023), the research generated rich data illustrating how certain English public authorities have developed relatively mature SP capabilities and applied them within the procurement process. The former included the appointment of “champions”; the founding of groups/units; training using webinars, online resources and case studies; “toolkits”, including policy documents, process guidance and measurement tools and networking. The latter included consultation with social value recipients and close engagement with both internal stakeholders and suppliers. The research also revealed the internal political skills of “champions”, as SP challenges incumbent logics regarding procurement objectives and practices.

First, the paper provides a potential roadmap for organisational capability development. Second, the research makes clear that public authorities should not seek to reinvent the capability wheel. Engagement with peers, advisory bodies, established “toolkits”, etc. is imperative, with much expertise publicly available. Third, it also suggests that smaller public authorities might seek to act as part of a consortium rather than go it alone, given the investment required for effective SP. Fourth, the research showed that practitioners need to understand SP as not simply a development challenge but also a political one.

The paper contributes to the literature by analysing SP from the largely overlooked resource-based perspective, by providing rich data on buy-side practice, by usefully adding to the literature's emerging “practice theme” and by offering guidance to buy-side managers within public authorities.

This paper critically evaluates regional development through the lens of well-being and purpose. The paper provides insight into the key roles that well-being and purpose play in regional development and the way in which various actors are engaged in this process. This paper focuses on the Swansea Bay City Region within Wales, a country at the forefront of well-being legislation.

This paper analyses a case study of 4theRegion, a membership organisation that undertakes regional development activities underpinned by a social purpose and well-being across the Swansea Bay city region. 4theRegion has been selected due to (1) its unique business model; (2) its clear focus on well-being and purpose; and (3) the influence of its regional development actions bringing together various stakeholder groups under a common aim.

This paper extends existing debates on collaborative development approaches and underlines the unique emphasis on asset-based local development influenced by well-being, which seeks to engage with a variety of community stakeholders to derive “holistic flourishing”. This emphasises inclusive development activities across the region, through people, place, process and purpose, underpinned by well-being. The research also underlines debates about the subjectivity of well-being and how the impact of well-being legislation can be evaluated.

This research provides a new way of looking at regional development, through the lens of well-being and purpose and provides insight into the way in which various actors are engaged in this process. Implications of this research could influence policymaking in supporting regional development activities, as well as practical lessons for those involved in place-based development.

This paper examines how key actors in the UK food system (FS) understand the role of the local food sector in relation to FS resilience.

Discourse analysis was used to assess and compare the framings of the UK FS in 36 publications released during Covid-19 from alternative food networks (AFNs) actors and from other more mainstream FS actors, including the UK government.

The analysis shows that AFNs actors perceive the UK FS as not resilient and identify local FSs as a route towards greater resilience (“systemic” framing). In contrast, other food actors perceive the UK FS as already resilient, with the role of local food limited to specific functions within the existing system (“add-on” framing). The two groups converge on the importance of dynamic public procurement and local abattoir provision, but this convergence does not undermine the fundamental divergence in the understanding of the role of “the local” in resilient UK FSs. The local food sector’s messages appear to have gone largely unheard in mainstream policy.

The paper presents an analysis of public sector reports focused on the UK FS released during the Covid-19 pandemic years 2020–2021. The corpus inclusion criteria mean that publications during this period which focus on other food sector issues, such social injustices, climate change and health, were not included in the analysis, although they may have touched upon local food issues. The authors further recognise that Covid-19 had a longer lasting effect on FSs than the years 2020–2021, and that many other publications on FSs have been published since. The time span chosen targets the time at which FSs were most disrupted and therefore aims to capture emerging issues and solutions for the UK FS. The authors’ insights should be further validated through a more complete review of both public reports and academic papers covering a wider base of food-related issues and sectors as well as a broader timespan.

A comparison of how different FS actors understand the importance of local food, especially in relation to resilience, has not been undertaken to date. The findings raise important questions about the disconnect between AFN actors and other actors in the framing of resilience. Considering the need to ensure resilience of the UK FS, this study's findings raise important insights for UK food policy about the “local food blindspot” and for food movement actors wishing to progress their vision of transformative change.

This paper aims to provide a reference for the development of digital transformation from the perspective of manufacturing process links.

This paper applies canonical correlation analysis based on digital technology patents in the key links of manufacturing industries (product design, procurement, product manufacturing, warehousing and transportation, and wholesale and retail) and the related indicators of economic benefits of regions in China.

(1) The degree of digitalization of manufacturing process links is significantly correlated with economic benefits. (2) The improvement of the degree of digitalization in the “product design” link, the “warehousing and transportation” link, the “product manufacturing” link and the “wholesale and retail” link has significant impacts on the economic benefits of manufacturing industry. (3) The digital degree of the “procurement” link has no obvious influence on the economic benefits of manufacturing industry.

The research results can provide reference for the formulation and implementation of micro policies. The strategy of improving the level of digital transformation of key links of manufacturing industry is put forward to better promote both the digital transformation of manufacturing industry and economic development.

This paper innovatively studies the relationship between digitalization of manufacturing process links and economic benefits. The findings can provide theoretical and empirical support for the digital transformation of China's manufacturing industry and high-quality development of economy.

This study's purpose is to collate data on the existing Green Public Procurement (GPP) legal policies, frameworks and initiatives at the global level and, second, to identify the conditions required for implementing green procurement practices and programs in developing countries such as India. A structured literature review was conducted using the search terms ‘Green Public Procurement’, 'Policy’ and ‘India’. Reports, technical papers and articles in a language other than English were excluded from the search. Finally, 20 papers were shortlisted and reviewed. The study found that GPP has begun taking shape globally and necessitates capacity building at many levels, including knowledge sharing, sourcing resources, fiscal re-distribution and public awareness. National governments emerge as key players in facilitating sustainable procurement, while international bodies continue to develop prospective policy frameworks. However, GPP is at its nascency in India and will require significant pre-assessment and planning to standardize itself among big and medium enterprises. While GPP allows for environmental consciousness, its use in India also presents the potential for innovation and expanding the consumer market. Its establishment requires the government to implement a centralized body that directs GPP activity, incentivizes green technology and develops policies favouring multi-level collaboration. Further research can involve in-depth interviewing of key people in Public Procurement (PP) processes to gauge the preparedness and seriousness of the government to undertake green procurement and understand the inherent challenges in transitioning to more sustainable procurement modalities.

Like a well-designed procurement strategy, a well-designed rolling stock strategy promotes the development of a railroad company and contributes to its competitive advantage. Effective implementation of the rolling stock strategy enhances the likelihood of enjoying the benefits of the strategy’s design. A successful implementation relies on the strategy being known, understood, controlled and communicated to the entire organization.

The research consists of an extensive literature review as well as a series of workshops with rolling stock suppliers, railway authorities and representatives and rail users.

This paper presents a collection of solutions for passenger rail rolling stock procurement. The authors offer guidance to the strategic procurement of rolling stock in the European Union (EU) and propose key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of a rolling stock strategy.

While this study presents a thorough evaluation of rolling stock procurement practices, it is limited by its geographic isolation. Future studies should compare the procurement practices discussed here to others in the EU, as well as in North America, South America and Asia. Additionally, this study focused on the passenger rail segment. Passenger transport is an important function of the rail network in the EU, but future research should expand the assessment of rolling stock procurement strategies to freight rail as well.

Overall, this work provides visibility into common rolling stock procurement practices in complex EU railway markets. This work expands the literature through a review of these practices and through enabling research into best practices or a commonly accepted procurement model.

The study sets out to demonstrate how a lifecycle perspective on complex, public-sector procurement projects can be used for making qualitative assessments of procurement policy and practice and reveal those procurement capabilities that are most impactful for operating effectively.

Agency theory, institutional theory and the lifecycle analysis technique are combined to abductively develop a framework to identify, analyse and compare complex procurement policies and practices in public sector organisations. Defence is the focal case and is compared with cases in the Nuclear, Local Government and Health sectors.

The study provides a framework for undertaking a lifecycle analysis to understand the challenges and capabilities of complex, public-sector buyers. Eighteen hierarchically-arranged themes are identified and used in conjunction with agency theory and institutional theory to explain complex procurement policy and practice variation in some of the UK’s highest-profile public buyers. The study findings provide a classification of complex buyers and offer valuable guidance for practitioners and researchers navigating complex procurement contexts.

The lifecycle approach proposed is a new research tool providing a bespoke application of theory by considering each lifecycle phase as an individual but related element that is governed by unique institutional pressures and principal-agent relationships.

While operational performance is important for a company's competitiveness and profitability, this study claims that procurement may be required to drive operational performance. This study aims to focus on how procurement practices is related to operational performance among selected manufacturing firms.

The model was tested on a sample of 329 manufacturing firms in clothing and textiles, chemicals and plastics, food and beverages processing, wood processing, metal processing and pharmaceutical manufacturing industries in a developing economy.

The results indicate that firms with higher and optimal level of procurement practices achieve higher levels of operational performance. Regardless of the H1 rationale, this study suggests that increasing procurement techniques has a limit in terms of improving operational performance. This study establishes that extreme level of procurement practices is associated with decreasing operational performance.

This study calls attention to how managers can guide organizations in refining their procurement strategies and practices; there is the need to strive to strike a balance between diversification and efficiency in procurement.

Manufacturing firms are often integral parts of local communities. The decisions they make regarding procurement practices can impact the economic health of these communities. Striking a balance between diversification and efficiency can contribute to sustainable business practices that benefit both the company and the local community.

As the main contribution, this study brings the additional perspective that extreme level of procurement practices is associated with decreasing operational performance.

The Afghan construction industry faces resource shortages and heavily relies on foreign aid to fund public projects on the path to recovery and reconstruction. While the resource constraints demand cost-efficient delivery of construction projects, many Afghan public projects experience delays and cost overruns. This study aims to evaluate various attributes and factors influencing cost performance in public construction projects in Afghanistan.

The literature review and Delphi method identified 30 cost performance attributes relevant to the context of Afghanistan. Next, a questionnaire survey was conducted with construction management professionals working in the public sector in the Afghan construction industry to evaluate these attributes.

This study found that the lack of resources, poor project management skills and corruption in procurement are the leading causes behind cost overruns in Afghan public projects. This study also identified five latent factors influencing cost performance in public projects in Afghanistan: competency of the project team, socioeconomic and political support, governance and public procurement, planning and risk management and project characteristics.

The exploratory factor analysis did not reveal the relative significance of different cost performance success factors. Moreover, the ranking of cost performance attributes is based on the responses from the public sector construction professionals only.

The construction industry in Afghanistan significantly contributes to the country’s social and economic growth and employment. This study’s findings will help researchers, project sponsors, government departments and industry practitioners interested in improving the cost performance in Afghan public projects.

Given the scarcity of research in war-affected and conflict-sensitive regions, this study fills a research gap on project cost performance by providing insights into the cost performance success factors in public projects in Afghanistan.

This article investigates how the healthcare sector can reorganize its procurement network to better balance its resilience and cost-minimization objectives.

A single case study was conducted on the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) during the first COVID-19 pandemic wave in the Quebec public healthcare network. Interviews were conducted with stakeholders from the supply chain management (SCM) departments at eight public healthcare institutions.

Two major challenges in the early months of the pandemic impacted the development of resilience in the healthcare network. First, peripheral actors’ decisions, which orient procurement objectives, limited the deployment of resilience measures in the supply chain (SC). Second, SC resilience included hundreds of products other than PPE that are critical to the delivery of care. The article illustrates the challenges of SCR, which will inevitably be accompanied by additional costs when purchasing in the public healthcare sector is often focused on the lowest price.

Drawing from the network perspective model, this article examines the actions of Quebec supply network stakeholders through the three phases of SCR: anticipation, response to disruption, and recovery. Finally, the article suggests that decision-makers remove the cost of resilience measures from the purchase price of products, in order to maintain these measures over the long term.