Public procurement as an innovation policy tool: the role of institutions

SPP Toolbox: Supporting Sustainable Public Procurement in the Context of Socio-Technical Transitions

“…The analysis of this information supports the following findings: (1) organisational factors were well developed in the three cases, achieving a similar situation by the end of the project, in spite of the different starting point of each organization; (2) regarding the evolution of GPP to SPP and PPI approaches, by the end of the project (2014), Torres Vedras and Loures positioned in GPP/SPP practices, while LIPOR started the first steps to PPI by developing functional criteria in the tender; after 2014, Loures and LIPOR raised their ambitions by challenging the incumbent suppliers and expanding the experience to LCC, in the case of LIPOR; these experiments placed those local authorities in a better position to move forward to PPI; this might confirm the need of public organizations to gain experience, starting with GPP and then moving towards SPP and ultimately to PPI; (3) in what concerns inter-organizational factors, relationships with incumbent suppliers changed for all case studies, due to early market engagement activities, similarly to networking activities, establishing the first steps for a shared vision. Thus, inter-organizational factors development, which are the basis for niche formation, were still in an inception phase, with the initial establishment of social networks.…”

“…Accordingly, this block encompasses four key factors: suppliers' involvement, networking, external stakeholders and vision. Moving from GPP to SPP to PPI, the organization increasingly needs to: develop earlier and longer-lasting collaborative activities with suppliers [43]; work in networks with similar organizations that use each other as reference points, sharing best practices, promoting interactive learning and spreading knowledge [44,45]; and, engage with other external stakeholders, such as managers in public agencies, policy-makers, public procurers, potential users, suppliers, researchers and non-governmental organizations [3,15,43]. These relationships are addressed in the key factors suppliers' involvement, networking and external stakeholders.…”

“…Accordingly, this block encompasses the following key factors: suppliers' involvement [3,4,7,14,15,18,25,26,30,[43][44][45][46]63,64], networking [3,15,16,26,[43][44][45] and external stakeholders [3,15,24,26,43,44]. These are developed in the networking section of Step 1.…”

“…The high purchasing power of public organizations and of public authorities in particular, is a market factor with enormous potential [1], representing 16% of the gross domestic product of the EU [2,3] and covering a wide range of goods and services, including: office equipment, building components, transport vehicles, building maintenance, transport services, cleaning, catering and works [1]. In other words, public procurement can shape production and consumption towards more sustainable trends [1], by stimulating innovation in the value chain and promoting the diversification of the products and services mix [4,5].…”

Poverty Reduction Strategies via Public-Private Partnerships

“…Policies relating to public procurement can be utilised as a tool to bring about desired changes (Rolfstam, 2009). They can provide a method for local and federal governments to make small investments in infrastructure and finances (like co-operatives) to assist marginalised groups to start-up businesses, or create incubators to develop specialised cottage industries, acting in an incubatory role.…”