Social Public Purchasing: Addressing a Critical Void in Public Purchasing Research

Abstract

Since governments are the largest buyers globally, they have enormous purchasing power. Government purchasing, therefore, has potential to be leveraged to improve social outcomes, such as helping disadvantaged communities, ensuring labor rights, and minimizing negative environmental impacts. However, as yet, there is little understanding about social public purchasing research in the field of public administration. We provide a theoretical framework for organizing research around social public purchasing. We then survey both the scholarly and practitioner research on social public purchasing in order to develop a clear understanding of the critical knowledge gaps and the potential for important social public purchasing research.