Stewardship and administrative capacity in green public procurement in the Czech Republic: evidence from a large-N survey

Abstract

Background The uptake of green public procurement in the Czech Republic is known to lag behind the European standards. We trace this condition back to the adverse effects of a specific type of decision-making tradeoff faced by the Czech public procurement officials, namely the tradeoff between stewardship and administrative compliance. The tradeoff means that public procurers are aware of, and seek to forestall, administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious non-perfunctory implementation of green public procurement. Results The overall result is that public procurers ultimately come to prioritize the contract criterion of the lowest price over ecological criteria. The existence of the tradeoff has been generally confirmed by the results of a unique large-N survey of more than 1,100 respondents from a group of local public officials and mayors in the Czech Republic. Conclusion We have found that the decision-making of Czech public procurers is affected by the tradeoff between stewardship and administrative compliance, which turn out to be mutually conflicting goals. On the one hand, many public procurers do possess stewardship motivation that shapes their positive attitude to GPP. On the other, they are painfully aware of, and seek to forestall, administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious, i.e., non-perfunctory, implementation of GPP.