Addressing Barriers to Social Procurement Implementation in the Construction and Transportation Industries: An Ecosystem Perspective

Riccardo Natoli (), Catherine Xiaocui Lou and David Goodwin
Additional contact information
Riccardo Natoli: Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC 3030, Australia
Catherine Xiaocui Lou: Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC 3030, Australia
David Goodwin: Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih 43500, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 14, 1-21

Abstract: Although social procurement is viewed as an important part of social value creation, barriers to its implementation have resulted in a failure to realise the full societal benefits it was designed to achieve. As a key area of activity for government procurement projects, the construction and transportation industries have a big role to play in contributing positively to societal outcomes. While prior studies have identified barriers from specific cohorts, no prior study has approached this from the perspective of the key stakeholders throughout the social procurement ecosystem within the construction and transport industries. To address this gap in social procurement research, interviews and a focus group totalling 42 participants were undertaken. Participants ranged from those implementing policy (government representatives), tendering for contracts (tier one companies) and providing specialised social procurement services (social enterprises), along with key intermediary support bodies. Results indicate that barriers exist throughout the entire social procurement ecosystem and highlight the need to develop an enhanced social procurement ecosystem capable of maximising the societal benefit that arises from social procurement. These findings provide a set of strategies for the key stakeholders in the ecosystem to consider adopting to improve social procurement outcomes.

Keywords: barriers; construction industry; transportation; social procurement; policy; practice; social enterprise; ecosystem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11347/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/14/11347/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:14:p:11347-:d:1198961

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().