SAPIENS Lead Researcher Prof. Andrea Appolloni from University of Rome Tor Vergata, Faculty of Economics, recently published together with Junqi Liu, Yanlin Ma and Wenjuan Cheng a paper on the Journal of Public Procurement on the role of external stakeholders in driving Green Public Procurement (GPP) practices from an organizational learning point of view. The Journal of Public Procurement covers all aspects of public procurement at a local, regional, national and international level. Multi-disciplinary, the journal examines public procurement from the perspectives of management, law, economics and politics.

Paper abstract

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.

The paper can be accesed on the Emerald Journal of Public Procurement .