The institutional drivers of social procurement implementation in Australian construction projects

Abstract

Social procurement policies are becoming an increasingly popular tool for construction project clients to meet their corporate social responsibility objectives. This research employs New Institutional Theory to investigate the coercive, mimetic and normative drivers behind the adoption of social procurement policies in Australian construction projects. It presents a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with sixteen social procurement actors in the Australian construction industry who are responsible for implementing these policies at a project level. Results contribute new theoretical and practical insights into the nascent and under-theorized body of social procurement research in the field of project management. They indicate that coercive isomorphism is the most powerful driver of social procurement adoption in Australian construction projects, followed by mimetic isomorphism and normative isomorphism. It is concluded that the effective implementation of social procurement policies in construction projects requires project supply chains to shift from a compliance and mimicking mindset to one which normalizes social procurement. This will require institutional change based on the legitimisation of new social procurement professionals, roles and practices and the development of new project-based intermediaries to mitigate the risks and maximize the opportunities that social procurement presents.