Search

In recent times, governments have been using their procurement function to drive innovation in firms’ product outcomes and to improve operational activities that pose sustainability challenges. Ghana, for example, is currently advancing and upgrading its public works infrastructure with revenues from its commercialised oil reserves to match and improve its anticipated middle-income economy status. Faced with several sustainability challenges, such as environmental pollution and resource depletion, desecration of cultural heritage sites and exposure of labour force to poor working conditions, public works infrastructure procurements constitute a larger proportion of government procurement expenditure, globally, compared with the procurement of goods and services. This research explores how the procurement of public works infrastructure may be managed to drive innovation that addresses these sustainability problems within the public works infrastructure sector of Ghana. According to the World Bank, government procurement expenditure constituted about $11 trillion (15%) of the global gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018. The size of government expenditure has served as an incentive for driving supplier innovation in industries. However, available studies on government procurement and innovation offer little knowledge about the dynamics of government innovation procurement management and the conditions under which supply firms bid for such unique contracts. Hence, this scant knowledge limits our understanding of the impact of public procurement on innovation in the entire supply chain. This PhD thesis explores suppliers’ perspectives of the dynamics of public procurement for sustainability-oriented innovation and how resources mobilised by supply networks enhance the sustainability and innovation capacity of the supply chain to bid for government innovation contracts. Comprising a systematic literature review, a conceptual review and an empirical study, this research ma

Public sector purchasing processes are gaining increasing prominence as a demand-side innovation tool for addressing national sustainability challenges. Accordingly, there has been growing research attention to this topic. Prior studies suggest three key rationales that underlie the use of public sector procurement to drive innovation: (i) the buyer–user rationale (for creating new needs); (ii) the market/system failure rationale (for improving suppliers' capacity to innovate); and (iii) the public services rationale (for improving public services). However, operational activities at the upstream supply chain affecting the sustainable innovation capacities of supplier firms appear to be under-researched in the public procurement for innovation (PPI) scholarship, despite knowledge about innovation capacity being critical to successfully implementing PPI. This paper adopts a systematic literature review approach to synthesise existing fragmented literature on sustainability-oriented PPI, focusing on supplier perspectives. Findings from a synthesis of 41 relevant articles suggest, among others conditions, that a procurement framework that maintains a good balance of competition and innovation, builds buyer–supplier relationship and urges strong supply networks, maintains a stable political commitment, offers security for niche markets with effective innovation risk management culture would enhance suppliers' sustainability capacity and propensity to innovate. This paper contributes to the PPI literature and the literature on determinants of sustainable innovation systems from supplier firms' sustainability lens.

Public sector purchasing processes are gaining increasing prominence as a demand-side innovation tool for addressing national sustainability challenges. Accordingly, there has been growing research attention to this topic. Prior studies suggest three key rationales that underlie the use of public sector procurement to drive innovation: (i) the buyer–user rationale (for creating new needs); (ii) the market/system failure rationale (for improving suppliers' capacity to innovate); and (iii) the public services rationale (for improving public services). However, operational activities at the upstream supply chain affecting the sustainable innovation capacities of supplier firms appear to be under-researched in the public procurement for innovation (PPI) scholarship, despite knowledge about innovation capacity being critical to successfully implementing PPI. This paper adopts a systematic literature review approach to synthesise existing fragmented literature on sustainability-oriented PPI, focusing on supplier perspectives. Findings from a synthesis of 41 relevant articles suggest, among others conditions, that a procurement framework that maintains a good balance of competition and innovation, builds buyer–supplier relationship and urges strong supply networks, maintains a stable political commitment, offers security for niche markets with effective innovation risk management culture would enhance suppliers' sustainability capacity and propensity to innovate. This paper contributes to the PPI literature and the literature on determinants of sustainable innovation systems from supplier firms' sustainability lens.

LePere-Schloop, M., Appe, S., Adjei-Bamfo, P., Zook, S., & Bawole, J. N. (2021). Mapping civil society in the digital age: Critical reflections from a project based in the global south. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640211057401