Sustainable procurement strategies for competitive advantage: An empirical study

Procurement plays a key role in sustainability as policies and practices need to extend beyond organisations' boundaries to incorporate their whole supply chains. There is, however, a paucity of empirical research on sustainable forms of procurement initiatives currently being implemented in the UK construction sector to improve competitiveness - which is the core driver of this paper. In order to achieve this aim, a mixed research methodological approach was adopted to collect and analyse data. The findings are based primarily on quantitative data obtained from 53 completed postal questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 17 professionals from 12 UK construction organisations. As revealed by this study, sustainable procurement is becoming increasingly important in the UK construction sector. The paper concludes that the process of integrating sustainable procurement initiatives into existing business models is often a complex issue. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the drivers and impediments associated with the successful integration of sustainable procurement initiatives into existing construction business models. It is also suggested that there is a need for cross-sector collaboration to capture and share best and worst practices relating to sustainable procurement strategies

The changing influence of societal culture on job satisfaction across Europe

This paper contributes to the growing multidisciplinary body of literature on subjective well-being by investigating the longitudinal stability and impact of societal cultural values (SCVs) – as opposed to the more common organizational values – on job satisfaction. It is assumed that SCVs evolve slowly; hence, their impact on job satisfaction is likely to remain stable over time. False adherence to this assumption could cause misalignment between organizational policies/practices and expectations formed by societal culture, decreasing job satisfaction and adversely affecting productivity, competiveness and prosperity. Four waves of the European Values Study are used to examine whether SCVs have evolved and their impacts on job satisfaction over a relatively short time: 1981–2008. SCVs are parameterized through reference to traditional vs secular-rational, and survival vs self-expression value continuums. Results indicate that the strength of many SCVs has declined, the impacts of traditional societal values on job satisfaction have remained fairly constant, and the impacts of survival societal values on job satisfaction have declined substantially over this sample period. These reductions in SCVs amplify the importance of accounting for such changes when designing new or adjusting existing policies/practices to enhance job satisfaction and stimulate improvements in productivity, competitiveness and prosperity

Integrating Values, Purposes, and Visions for Responsible Development

This chapter highlights a study showing that knowledge sharing and envisioning processes can have positive effects on human and social capital growth within a network. The chapter begins by arguing that a responsible development perspective can be more proactive approach than a sustainability perspective. Some actors (non-profit, public, and private) have achieved responsible development goals by integrating values, purposes and visions. More specifically, we conducted a study testing a methodology that can guide a process of building a strategic vision within a network with the goal of improving their responsible development orientation. The chosen methodology is “Participatory Action Research”. The implementation of the envisioning process was studied via quantitative/qualitative research tools. The methodology was tested in an official cross-country project funded by the European Commission. The project was selected as a best practice by the same European Union Commission. The study highlights the importance of envisioning processes in building social and human capital at the inter-organizational level and, in particular, in highly complex sectors such as those oriented towards improving social responsibility. In fact, work on the envisioning process itself represents an essential instrument for developing strategic objectives to be shared among actors within networks that intend to promote responsible development and improve their human and social capital. This bottom-up process of envisioning can also facilitate cultural interaction among community members, even in a cross-country context. This relevant “learning-by-interacting” experience, can create a growth process for the human and social capital of entire communities. The creation of social capital also promotes the development of shared knowledge and advances leading to the general understanding of common core objectives and appropriate ways of acting within the social system. The chapter ends with recommendations for future research