Rhetorical Strategies to Diffuse Social Procurement in Construction
Paper in proceeding, 2018

Social procurement - in particular employment requirements aimed to create employment opportunities for disadvantaged unemployed people like immigrants or the disabled - are increasingly implemented in Swedish construction procurement. Social procurement is novel in Sweden, and actors who work with implementing employment requirements try to spread these practices throughout the sector. Building on interviews with 21 actors working with social procurement, this paper investigates rhetorical strategies for diffusing a social procurement practice in the construction sector. Applying the Aristotelian types of arguments, ethos, logos and pathos, when investigating the rhetoric used by proponents of social procurement, the findings show that they use a wide range of rhetorical strategies that that emphasize the character of the proponents and their arguments, that explicate the rationality of social procurement, and that appeal to the emotions of potential supporters. The findings contribute to research on social procurement by identifying discourse related to social procurement, as well as rhetorical strategies proponents of social procurement use in attempts to diffuse social procurement practice throughout the Swedish construction sector. These rhetorical strategies may potentially increase legitimation of social procurement. For managers who aim to diffuse social procurement in the sector, the findings provide an overview of a number of different types of arguments that can be used in order to argue for social procurement and its benefits.

rhetoric

employment requirements

social procurement

Sweden

Author

Daniella Troje

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Service Management and Logistics

Proceeding of the 34th Annual ARCOM Conference

505-514
978-0-9955463-2-5 (ISBN)

The 34th Annual ARCOM Conference, Association of Researchers in Construction Management
Belfast, United Kingdom,

Procurement for Sustainable Innovation in the Built Environment

Formas (2013-1837), 2014-01-01 -- 2018-12-31.

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Areas of Advance

Building Futures (2010-2018)

Subject Categories

Economics and Business

Other Social Sciences

More information

Latest update

8/26/2020