2098: Strategic Purchasing Integration as an Antecedent of Public Value (13580)

This study empirically examines how strategic purchasing integration contributes to developing social capital within supply networks and how this social capital affects operational, innovative, and environmental value creation. We analyzed survey data from 173 public procurement experts in Finland, employing structural equation modeling. Our results indicate that strategic purchasing integration enhances the creation of relational, cognitive, and structural capital within supply networks, with the relational aspect being the most impacted. This social capital had in turn crucial impact on value, exhibiting diverse effects. Operational value is achieved through a combination of cognitive and structural capital, while environmental value primarily develops through structural capital. Innovative value creation requires all three types of social capital. Uniquely, our study reveals that different types of value necessitate different combinations of social capital. Furthermore, our findings underscore the vital role of aligning internally and externally, as strategic purchasing integration helps in building social capital with external supply networks, thereby fostering superior public value creation for the buying organization. This research complements and extends similar findings in the private sector and shows that both integration and social capital are relevant also for public and social organizations that do not have financial value as a key value driver.

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