Analysis of Antecedents and Their Influences on Sustainable Public Procurement: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

Public procurement (PP) helps promote sustainable development and plays a strategic role in the economy of countries. The general objective of this research is to analyze the main antecedents, their influences, and challenges in the sustainable acquisition and contracting of goods and services by public institutions, through a quantitative and statistical approach based on the development of improvement proposals. The methodological aspects of the paper permeate the conceptual stage on the frontier of knowledge of antecedents in sustainable public procurement (SPP), being actors, strategies, barriers, and purposes. A conceptual framework and hypotheses arising from theory were developed, and a survey was conducted among employees of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Brazil. With structural equation modeling (SEM), an integrated model in sustainable public procurement (SPP) was structured. The results of the research validate the constructs in SPP and highlight the causal relationships between them. It empirically validates an integrated model in SPP and the hypothesis tests. The constructs, actors, strategies, and purposes significantly influence sustainability improvements in PP, demonstrating their strategic importance, and barriers negatively influence purposes, demonstrating the importance of knowledge on the topic to mitigate its adverse effects. The research offers insights for managers, policymakers, and researchers in SPP, in the search for a more systemic view of the process and to improve sustainability indices in public procurement.