“A doctoral thesis is far beyond one researcher’s work“. This statement from my thesis acknowledgements summarises the PhD journey I embarked on at the University of Gävle in 2021, with the support of the SAPIENS Network, which I recently finished.

On June 5th, 2025, I defended my thesis “Breaking the public procurement walls: organisational changes for a collaborative approach towards sustainability” at the University of Gävle. The thesis explores the role of collaboration in sustainable public procurement (SPP) and is available at the university’s repository. I’d like to thank the opponent (Katrina Lintukangas) and the grading committee (Anne-Maria Holma, Mattias Lindahl, and Carl Dalhammar) for the insightful discussions during the defence. I also want to thank my supervisors (Per Hilletofth, Robin von Haartman, Małgorzata Koszewska, Rodrigo Lozano, and Maria Barreiro-Gen) for their guidance throughout this PhD journey and the SAPIENS Network family for their amazing support.

I want to share some thoughts on this journey, including but not limited to the findings from my thesis, aiming to inspire those who are about to delve into sustainability and procurement research and pursue a PhD. In such journeys, one can lead (such as in a music band), but the outcomes (as in SPP) require harmony between several elements, including musicians (research team), technical expertise (research skills), and what the audience expects (research community). I hope to provide some insights into harmonising such elements by sharing some recommendations from my personal experience.

In the following sections, I’ll present key findings from my thesis (prologue), prospects on how research on collaboration between stakeholders in SPP can be further developed (interlude), and, lastly, some reflections on my journey (epilogue).

Collaboration between stakeholders has been promoted by most of the SPP guidelines. Collaboration use to be seen as a “joker card” to be used freely and solve every challenge in SPP implementation. However, there has been little research providing a systemic approach to collaboration in this contexts and addressing how organisations cab effectively develop collaborative arrangements for implementing sustainability in public procurement.

The purpose of my doctoral thesis was to provide a more complete understanding of how organisations can contribute to sustainability efforts through SPP by exploring the role of collaboration between stakeholders and considering organisational changes required to move such organisations towards implementing SPP and collaborative initiatives. This purpose was fulfilled by answering the following research questions (RQ):

RQ1: What is the role of collaboration between stakeholders in SPP?
RQ2: How can collaboration contribute to developing SPP initiatives?
RQ3: What are the best practices for establishing collaboration in SPP?
RQ4: What are the forces fostering and blocking collaboration in SPP?

My thesis sheds light on the role of collaboration in SPP. Collaboration is a key force in harmonising SPP elements and influencing organisational changes. However, there are limits to which aspects can be addressed through collaboration and collaboration costs must be considered. Collaboration can break the public procurement walls but is not a silver bullet for implementing SPP.

The key findings from my thesis include:

• Stakeholder interactions are an important element of the SPP system, leveraging the potential of developing collaborative initiatives;
• Collaboration is the most important driver for organisational changes towards implementing SPP, influencing praxis-driven and policy-driven contexts;
• Collaboration promotes 27 benefits for SPP initiatives, influencing the whole procurement cycle and governance. Such benefits include mutual learning, developing sustainability requirements, mutual understanding of needs, and understanding market readiness;
• There are limits to which aspects of SPP can be addressed through collaboration and costs to be considered;
• Organisations must balance benefits and drawbacks to reach optimal collaboration in SPP initiatives;
• Collaboration can be established through 15 mechanisms, influencing the whole procurement cycle;
• Individual and organisational facilitators can contribute to establishing and maintaining collaboration in SPP;
• Collaboration initiatives may not be determined by context but by individual commitment and organisational capacity to navigate into the legal and bureaucratic pathways to SPP;
• Organisations engaged with SPP can decide when to collaborate by analysing the benefits and drawbacks, evaluating their expertise in developing collaboration mechanisms, and assessing the availability of facilitators;
• Organisations can change for implementing SPP but, if they intend to use a key driver such as collaboration between stakeholders, an additional and specific change must be carried out;
• A holistic approach to forces influencing organisational changes towards collaboration in SPP is needed, explicitly considering stakeholder dependence and organisational influence.

My PhD thesis offers theoretical contributions mainly related to the SPP system (by applying a systems thinking approach to SPP), organisational change management for sustainability (developing organisational changes for SPP and collaboration in SPP), and collaboration between stakeholders (by applying collaboration theory to the SPP context). It also offers practical tools to better understand SPP initiatives and to promote collaboration in SPP, contributing to practitioners’ efforts. Tools that can be adopted by practitioners and incorporated into SPP guidelines, fostering a better SPP implementation.

The thesis also shows that a long research path lies ahead in building knowledge on collaboration and SPP. For example, further research should explore several drivers, barriers, and strategies identified by the thesis to understand their contributions to implementing SPP. The importance of the drivers, barriers, and strategies could be analysed by a quantitative study, assessing the validity of the whole set of forces in different contexts and updating the rankings presented by the thesis. Quantitative studies could also focus on the interconnections between barriers to SPP and strategies to overcome such barriers in different contexts.

The suppliers’ perspective on organisational changes for implementing SPP should also be explored by qualitative studies, using inductive approaches to build theory considering their contexts. More studies analysing different SPP contexts could help to develop knowledge on the systemic elements that compose the different SPP change approaches. The contextual influence on forces influencing changes for sustainability could also be analysed in other processes.

Further research should explore collaboration in SPP through the market and society stakeholders’ perspectives to provide depth on the topic and identify eventual collaboration led by non-governmental stakeholders. The influence of legal frameworks and bureaucratic cultures in collaboration mechanisms, considering developing and developed countries, could be explored by case studies aimed at providing depth on such mechanisms. Legal comparative research (including developing and developed countries) could also be conducted to shed light on the different procedures used to implement collaboration mechanisms, considering changes in the SPP process according to each procedure.

Collaboration drawbacks (e.g. coordination costs, developing supplier dependency) could be analysed through case studies considering how organisations are working to minimise them. Comparative studies can be carried out to provide depth on the non-deterministic role of contexts in developing collaboration between stakeholders in SPP. More research efforts on developing countries’ approaches to implementing SPP and collaboration are also needed, such as using inductive designs aimed at building theories considering their contexts and deductive designs testing and expanding more general frameworks. The frameworks provided by the thesis can be used for supporting case studies that may focus on how organisations can build individual commitment and organisational capacity to implement collaborative SPP initiatives.

This thesis should also be followed up with quantitative studies aimed at ranking and offering a more complete analysis of the interconnections between the forces influencing organisational changes for collaboration between stakeholders in SPP (e.g. barriers vs. strategies). Additional studies on forces influencing organisational changes for SPP should be carried out to analyse which forces require nested changes. Other contexts of organisational changes towards sustainability should be analysed through a nested change approach aiming at building knowledge on multiple and simultaneous change processes.

A PhD thesis comprises personal and professional histories, a supporting network, a suitable academic structure, and a balance between scientific and “real” life. One researcher can write it, but it summarises this set of powerful influences – including those who, by example, disseminate how and why one should embark on this transforming journey, i.e. a PhD.

I had the privilege of being supported by the SAPIENS Network during my PhD journey. My PhD was part of SAPIENS, and SAPIENS is now part of me. The formal part of a training network – courses, project meetings, guidance – is incomparable. I’ve learned much from experienced scholars, practitioners, and colleagues who shared their insights. However, this formal part only makes sense after experiencing the network’s informal part: team-building activities, sharing challenges and accomplishments, learning from other cultures, hearing inspiring speeches, forming a band (the Sustainables) and playing rock ‘n roll, etc. Thanks to all who contributed to building the SAPIENS family.

For those who are about to embark on such a journey, a few recommendations: focus on developing yourself as an independent researcher, balance work and personal life, use the impostor syndrome (it is real!) as a lever to unleash your potential, take some time off to find yourself again whilst delving into a myriad of data and sources, and, honestly, let go who you were the day you received your acceptance letter because you will not be same after finishing this journey – the whole world will be different because your senses also change. And remember: a PhD is not the end, it is just a transition.