Public Procurement Planning and Organizational Project Success, the Role of Management Commitment at the Public Sector Organizations

Abstract

Purpose: The success of public sector project delivery is often constrained by inefficiencies in procurement planning and inconsistent management commitment. This study examines the influence of procurement planning on project success and the mediating role of management commitment in public sector organisations in Ghana. Anchored in Institutional Theory, the study specifically assesses how procurement planning affects project success and whether management commitment transmits this effect, situating both constructs within Ghana’s coercive regulatory procurement environment. Methodology: A quantitative descriptive survey design was adopted. A structured questionnaire, using stratified sampling, yielded a total sample of 317 respondents. Institutional Theory guided the theoretical framework, explaining the coercive, normative, and cultural-cognitive pressures that shape procurement planning behaviour and management commitment in public sector institutions. Findings: The findings reveal that procurement planning positively and significantly predicts project success. Management commitment mediates this relationship and demonstrates that procurement planning does not only influence project success directly, but does so through the activation of management commitment, which drives the enforcement, resourcing, and oversight behaviour that translate plans into outcomes. The depth of this mediation is further conditioned by the institutional basis of commitment and that normatively and culturally embedded commitment mediates more effectively than compliance-driven commitment alone, yielding more timely, cost-effective, and quality project delivery. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study makes some theoretical contributions. First, it advances Institutional Theory by empirically demonstrating that the three isomorphic pressures coercive, normative, and cultural-cognitive operate differentially on management commitment and, through it, on project success. The distinction between compliance-driven and normatively embedded commitment as mediating mechanisms refines the theory’s explanatory reach in sub-Saharan African public procurement contexts. In addition, practice and policy, the mediation finding reframes where managerial and institutional investment should be directed. This means investing in procurement training, ethical leadership development, and inter-agency accountability structures that embed procurement standards as professional obligations rather than legal minimums. Project managers and executives can use this evidence to advocate for senior management engagement in procurement oversight that goes beyond compliance to fostering the accountability, cross-departmental coordination, and resource discipline that convert well-designed procurement plans into successful project outcomes.