The nature and determinants of sustainable procurement in Ghanaian organisations
Creators: name: ETSE, Daniel
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 350711
subject: Organisational planning and management

description: Sustainable procurement has emerged as an important strategy for achieving corporate sustainability objectives. Surging pressures on organisations to be sustainability-compliant continue to generate increased interest in academic as well as industrial circles regarding sustainable procurement and related practices. While the extant literature provides considerable insights into issues related to the nature, antecedents, implementation strategies, and outcomes of sustainable procurement, there remains, however, limited understanding regarding other pertinent issues such as relationships between the antecedents, effects of indirect relationships, and effects of organisational perceptions. Furthermore, the literature as it stands offers only limited insights into African countries' sustainable procurement issues. This thesis sought to address the afore-mentioned underexplored issues by doing the following four things. First, the scarcity of related studies on Africa was addressed by examining the nature of relevant practices in Ghana. Second, the lack of insights into the relationships between the antecedents was addressed by investigating the relationships between the external sustainable procurement drivers of regulations, and social influence on one hand, and the internal drivers of organisational leadership, and organisational culture on the other. Third, the lack of understanding relative to the effects of indirect relationships was addressed by analysing the mediating effects of organisational leadership, and organisational culture on the effects of regulations, and social influence on sustainable procurement practice. Fourth, the lack of insights relative to the effects of organisational perceptions on sustainable procurement was addressed by examining the effects of employees' perceptions on sustainable procurement practice relative to perceived complexity, compatibility, and relative advantage. Useable data from 322 organisations were obtained using the quantitative cross-sectional survey method. These data were analysed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and the structural equation modelling techniques, with the SPSS and AMOS version 25 statistical software. The following four main observations, consisting of fourteen specific findings were made: i) the practice of sustainable procurement is moderate in Ghanaian organisations; ii) regulations and social influence have significant positive effects on sustainable procurement, organisational leadership, and organisational culture; iii) organisational leadership has a mediating effect on regulations' and social influence's relationship with sustainable procurement; and iv) employees' perceptions of sustainable procurement complexity, and compatibility significantly affect relevant practices. The insights provided by the thesis make the following five key contributions to the extant literature: first, it contributes a social influence theoretical perspective; second, it integrates the sustainable procurement, human resources management, and the innovation management literature at a deeper level; third, it clarifies the relationship between internal and external drivers of sustainable procurement; fourth, the thesis enriches the understanding of the antecedents of sustainable procurement by providing an indirect effect perspective; and fifth, it provides an African perspective on sustainable procurement practices. With reference to the implications for relevant practices, the thesis makes the following four potential contributions: it sheds light on the relative strengths and weakness of sustainable procurement practices, and by so doing pin points areas that require special policy and management interventions; it highlights the strategy by which regulations and organisational leadership may be synergised to produce enhanced sustainable procurement outcomes; it explains how social influence may be deployed to facilitate enhanced sustainable procurement practices; and it provides a perspective on the means by which employees' perceptions can be harnessed to facilitate a more effective and efficient sustainable procurement practice in organisations. It is anticipated and hoped that the fresh perspectives provided will make possible a more appropriate and robust theorisation of sustainable procurement and related issues, inform relevant policy decisions and actions, and guide management strategy and practice.