As above, not so below: developing social procurement practices on strategic and operative levels
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2021

Procurement is increasingly used as a strategic tool to mitigate societal issues such as social exclusion and unemployment of marginalized groups. By conducting social procurement and imposing so-called employment requirements, organizations can create job opportunities for marginalized people. Such practices are becoming increasingly popular in the construction sector, but remain scattered, which hinders the effective creation, use and dissemination of cohesive and commonly shared social procurement practices. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the creation, use and dissemination of social procurement practices in the Swedish construction sector. Design/methodology/approach: The theory of proto-institutions, which refers to institutions under development, is applied to analyze 46 interviews with construction practitioners. Findings: There is currently little convergence of social procurement practices, due to practices not being fully internalized across organizations and projects; interns hired through employment requirements not having strong enough incentives to engage with their internships; actors working strategically and operatively having different possibilities to create social procurement practices; and the development of maintenance mechanisms for the formalization of sustainable practices being weak. Originality/value: This paper contextualizes efforts to increase equality, diversity and inclusion of marginalized groups in the construction sector. The adoption of an institutional perspective of practice development elucidates the institutional constellation of existing institutional logics that impact on this practice development. This paper also indicates how the work with social procurement can become more effective and efficient and maximize the social value output for marginalized people living in social exclusion. For institutional theory, it illustrates how proto-institutions can be driven by both top-down and bottom-up perspectives.

Employment requirements

Sweden

Institutional work

Construction

Practices

Proto-institutions

Social procurement

Författare

Daniella Troje

Chalmers, Teknikens ekonomi och organisation, Service Management and Logistics

Thomas Andersson

Högskolan i Skövde

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

2040-7149 (ISSN) 1758-7093 (eISSN)

Vol. 40 3 242-258

Upphandling för ett hållbart och innovativt samhällsbyggande

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

Ämneskategorier

Tvärvetenskapliga studier

Företagsekonomi

Internationell Migration och Etniska Relationer (IMER)

DOI

10.1108/EDI-03-2020-0054

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2021-07-21