How external stakeholders drive the green public procurement practice? An organizational learning perspective

Purpose This study aims to uncover the black box of the influence mechanism between external stakeholder drivers and green public procurement practice, and meanwhile to explore the moderating role of administrative level in this process. Green public procurement (GPP) has been widely implemented. Existing literature has found that external stakeholder drivers can affect public sectors' GPP practice, however, the definition of its connotation is still unclear, and how external stakeholders affect GPP practice has remained a black box. Design/methodology/approach After defining the major external stakeholders, this study develops a multiple mediation theoretical model using survey data from 142 Chinese local public sectors. It aims to uncover the black box of the influence mechanism between external stakeholder drivers and GPP practice and meanwhile explore the moderating effect of administrative levels in this process. Findings The results show that external stakeholder drivers have a positive relationship with GPP practices. The knowledge of GPP implementation policies and the knowledge of GPP benefits can both mediate this relationship. This study also finds that the administrative level of public sectors can positively moderate the mediating effect produced by the knowledge of GPP implementation policies and negatively moderate the mediation effect produced by the knowledge of GPP benefits. Social implications Local governments need to better encourage public sectors to implement GPP. Managers of public sectors need to pay attention to organizational learning to acquire relevant knowledge on GPP. Originality/value This study makes a theoretical contribution to a better understanding of the influence mechanism for GPP practice. This study also provides comparisons of GPP implementation policies between China and European Union.