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Aspects of sustainable procurement practices by public and private
organisations in Saudi Arabia: an empirical study
Article in The International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology · July 2016
DOI: 10.1080/13504509.2016.1209794
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Aspects of sustainable procurement practices by
public and private organisations in Saudi Arabia:
an empirical study
Md Mazharul Islam, Md Wahid Murad, Adela J. McMurray & Turki S. Abalala
To cite this article: Md Mazharul Islam, Md Wahid Murad, Adela J. McMurray & Turki S. Abalala
(2016): Aspects of sustainable procurement practices by public and private organisations in
Saudi Arabia: an empirical study, International Journal of Sustainable Development & World
Ecology, DOI: 10.1080/13504509.2016.1209794
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Date: 15 July 2016, At: 02:01
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2016.1209794
Aspects of sustainable procurement practices by public and private
organisations in Saudi Arabia: an empirical study
Md Mazharul Islama, Md Wahid Murad
b
, Adela J. McMurrayc, and Turki S. Abalalad
Downloaded by [27.33.90.247] at 02:01 15 July 2016
a
Department of Finance, College of Business, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; bUniSA College, University of South
Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia; cSchool of Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; dDepartment of Economics,
Faculty of Economics and Administration, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
ABSTRACT
ARTICLE HISTORY
While Saudi Arabia has demonstrated tremendous efforts in achieving the objective of
sustainable development by encouraging sustainable procurement practices by the public
and private organisations, there still exist significant hurdles blocking the full implementation
of these practices. This study is an effort to empirically investigate the aspects of sustainable
procurement practices by Saudi Arabian public and private organisations, particularly the
nature, extent and main barriers to implementing those practices at the organisational levels.
It also determines and analyses the relationship between an organisation’s, whether public or
private, sustainable procurement practices and the barriers to implementing those practices.
Using a structured questionnaire survey with 202 procurement directors/senior managers of
those Saudi Arabian organisations, we employed multivariate and multiple regression techniques to achieve the study objectives. Our empirical results suggest that regardless of the
ownerships and types of organisations, the current state of sustainable procurement practices
seems overly negative, and the attitudes of top management as well as the cultural aspects of
the organisations pose the main barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement practices at the organisational levels. We believe that this study provides an important
benchmark whereby one could measure the progress of sustainable procurement practices at
the organisational levels, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Depending on the similarity of the
aspects of the organisations in other countries with those in Saudi Arabia, the benchmark
would have wider applicability.
Received 27 March 2016
Accepted 30 June 2016
Introduction
Over the past decade, sustainable procurement has
become a growing issue in many countries. The World
Summit of Sustainable Development (WSSD 2002)
asserts that the relevant authorities at local, national,
and international levels should promote procurement
policies to encourage the diffusion of environmentally
sound goods and services to promote recycling (Srour
et al. 2012), sustainable construction (Son et al. 2011),
and sustainable consumption (Wahlen et al. 2012).
Sustainable procurement is considered a means of
sustainable development due to the impact of procurement policies and strategies on the environment,
the community, and the social and economic condition of those delivering and receiving the product or
service (European International Contractors, 2004).
Thus sustainable procurement is considered as the
new link between environmental, economic, and
social factors taken into account in purchasing decisions, and thereby portrayed the concept of sustainable development in practical and feasible ways. As a
result, sustainable procurement is considered an
important agenda by many private and public
CONTACT Md Wahid Murad
wahid.murad@unisa.edu.au
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
KEYWORDS
Sustainable procurement;
aspects of sustainable
procurement; sustainable
procurement practices;
public and private
organisations; Saudi Arabia
organisations in the Western and Eastern world. Yet
third world country statements and policy referring to
the introduction of sustainable practices into organisations show little evidence of implementation. The
literature shows sustainable procurement studies are
predominantly positioned in developed countries
such as the UK and USA. These studies primarily
focus on environmental purchasing in private sector
organisations, particularly in the manufacturing sector
(Walker & Brammer 2009). Thus, more studies implementing holistic approaches and integrated analyses
including the public sector, services, and developing
countries are essential (Walker et al. 2012) so as to
include organisations which are geographically, economically, legally, culturally, and politically diverse
from the traditional Western norm.
Saudi Arabia, a developing economy, has made
steady progress with socio-economic development,
gender equity, standard of living, health, education,
and environmental legislation (Husain & Khalil 2013).
Economic and infrastructure developments of the
country in last two decades have been amazing. The
Saudi construction industry is booming with the
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2
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
current expenditure rising to more than $120 billion a
year (Alrashed et al. 2014). The boom is linked to the
rapid expansion of the essential infrastructure in the
country. The construction of new highways and airports and the emergence of new urban centres in
Saudi Arabia have attracted construction experts
from around the world. Saudi Arabia’s construction
industry encompasses 15% of its workforce and consumes more than 14% of the country’s energy
(Dhahran International Exhibition Company, 2015).
The boom in the construction industry is a reflection
of the rapid growth in Saudi Arabia’s domestic
economy.
However, most of the projects in the construction
industry are not effective in terms of value to the
customers (Ali & Wen 2011). About 70% of the construction works experience cost and time overrun (AlKharashi & Skitmore 2009). For instance, 45 out of 76
private and public projects between 2000 and 2010
were not completed on time. Fatality in construction
site is common. For example, a recent crane collapse
in the grand mosque killed 107 people (BBC 2015).
Saudi Arabia is the third most expensive country for
construction among the Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) countries (Alrashed et al. 2014). Construction
cost has been rapidly increasing due to unsustainable
practices. In fact, the Saudi Arabia government issued
a decree that would require all construction companies to meet new resource consumption standards in
order to address this issue (The Guardian 2015). In
addition, there has been an increase in buildings
collapsing before reaching the end of their lifespan.
According to the Saudi Council of Engineers, the
average lifespan of Saudi building is between 25 and
50 years compared with 100 years observed in other
countries (AMEInfor 2014).
Yet sustainability issues are not being incorporated
in the majority of purchasing decisions by both the
private and public organisations. Contract bids or
tenders in the country are awarded based on the
economic rationalist model with the lowest bid winning (Bajaber & Taha 2012) at the expense of social
considerations such as the use of child labour and
compromise with health and working conditions and
environmental sustainability issues. In particular, the
eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness in the procurement practices are not being incorporated by the
public and private organisations in Saudi Arabia in
their efforts to move towards sustainable procurement. Wang and Côté (2011) identified both the
eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness as important indicators in the development of sustainable procurement whether at an organisational system or an
industrial system. However, only the effective implementation of sustainable procurement practices (Son
et al. 2011) and lean construction concepts can
address these challenges (Al-Otaibi et al. 2013).
This study is an effort to investigate the current
state of sustainable procurement practices and the
factors that may inhibit them in Saudi Arabia’s organisations. To date, no research has investigated the
aspects of sustainable procurement in Saudi Arabia, a
developing country which exhibits a culture of socialisation which is strongly attached to religion and
anchored in tradition. Also, with the aim of providing
an overview of sustainable procurement practices and
the barriers to its implementation across the organisations in Saudi Arabia, however, we would explore
answers to the following research questions:
(1) What is the nature and extent of implementation
of sustainable procurement practices in Saudi
Arabian organisations?
(2) What are the main barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement practices in
Saudi Arabian organisations?
(3) What is the relationship between an organisation’s sustainable procurement practices and
their barriers?
Literature review and constructs
Sustainable procurement
Sustainable procurement sits under the umbrella of
sustainability which refers to ‘making decisions that
maintain the right balance between the environment,
society and the economy to ensure long-term business success’ (HSBC Holdings 2013, p 3). There is no
common definition of sustainable procurement and
therefore the theoretical views and definitions vary
across individual studies, organisations and countries
(Walker et al. 2012). In its simplest terms, the sustainable procurement concept refers to the ability to
purchase products and equipment, usually on a
large scale, without compromising resources for
future generations. For example, according to the
Sustainable Procurement Task Force (DEFRA 2006, p
38), sustainable procurement is ‘a process whereby
organisations meet their needs for goods, services,
works, and utilities in a way that achieves value for
money on a whole life basis in terms of generating
benefits not only to the organisation, but also to
society and the economy, while minimising damage
to the environment’. For the purpose of this study, we
utilised the literature’s most popular definition of sustainable procurement, which is given by DEFRA
(2006).
Sustainable procurement practices
Organisations in different countries and in different
industries have differing sustainable procurement
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
practices (Zhu et al. 2005). Sustainable procurement
practices may include reducing packaging and waste,
assessing vendors on their environmental performance, safety record, labour rights, ability to develop
eco-friendlier products, and performance in reducing
carbon emissions associated with transport of goods.
For example, environmental purchasing is linked to
traditional purchasing activity with an environmental
management element (Zsidisin & Siferd 2001).
Sustainable transportation is defined as transportation
that meets mobility needs while preserving and
enhancing human and ecosystem health, economic
progress, and social justice (Deakin 2001).
Sustainable packaging is defined as packaging that
adds value to society by effectively containing and
protecting products during movement across the supply chain. Reverse logistics is defined as a process that
guarantees the efficient and effective use and re-use
of products (DeBrito 2003). It also includes purchasing
from minority or women-owned business enterprises
(MWBEs) (Carter & Jennings 2002) and local and small
firms (Walker & Brammer 2009).
Sustainable procurement practices were identified
through the literature and grouped into seven categories. Carter and Rogers (2008) stated that socially
responsible purchasing practices impact on all aspects
of the supply chain, including suppliers, employees,
and customers. Carter and Rogers (2008) suggested
five dimensions of sustainable procurement practices,
which included concern for environment, diversity,
working conditions and human rights, safety, and
philanthropy and community involvement. These
five aspects were extended by Walker and Brammer
(2009) to include buying locally and buying from
small suppliers. Subsequently, other sustainable supply chain and procurement studies supported these
sustainable procurement practice dimensions
(Brammer & Walker 2011; Zailani et al. 2012; Islam
et al. 2014).
Barriers to implementing sustainable
procurement practices
There are factors that hinder an organisation’s effort
to adopt sustainable practices which are discussed
below. The literature identifies considerable barriers
to the development, adoption, and implementation
of sustainable procurement practices which vary
across countries, organisations, and sectors. For
example, perceived costs or financial constraints
pose the most significant barrier in the UK, Eastern
and Western Europe, the USA, and Canada
(Brammer & Walker 2011; Blair & Wrigh 2012).
Awareness is identified as the main barrier in
Malaysia (Islam et al. 2014), while the lack of sustainable procurement policies and strategies are
found as top ranked barriers in the United Nations
3
(Hasselbalch et al. 2012). A lack of knowledge about
sustainability is identified as the main barriers in
Norway (Dolva 2008) along with misalignment of
short-term
and
long-term
strategic
goals
(Giunipero et al. 2012).
Other significant barriers to sustainable procurement include the lack of effective leadership, lack of
management support, and lack of training including
the lack of skill and competency of procurement professionals. Additional barriers include the lack of suppliers of sustainable assets or services, the lack of
cultural integration, lack of transparency, decentralised
or devolved purchasing structures, time pressures, conflicting priorities, lack of the quality of sustainable products, lack of political support and government
regulations including contract processes for commercial firms, lack of contract management, and conflicting
environment or social factors, lack of guideline, poor
supplier commitment, (Boomsma 2009; Brammer &
Walker 2011; Ageron et al. 2012; Blair & Wrigh 2012;
Hasselbalch et al. 2012; Genovese et al. 2013;
Mathiyazhagan et al. 2013; Islam et al. 2014). The literature identifies that the majority of barriers to sustainable procurement tend to be internal rather than
external to the organisation. However, no studies
investigated the sustainable procurement barriers in
the Gulf countries, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
Considering that Saudi Arabia is the largest economy
in the Middle East and 19th largest in the world, sustainable procurement practices in this country are
expected to have significant impact on the process of
sustainable development in the Middle East. Large
economic and population growth, huge construction
and development activity, and distinct cultural conservativeness of Saudi Arabia demand for an exclusive
investigation of sustainable procurement practices in
this country.
Socialisation and sustainability in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is a developing country where the
Muslim religion (Islam) provides the values and practices that socialise its population and takes prominence in most people’s lives. Religion and education
drive people’s beliefs and mental mindsets including
their attitudes and ultimately decision-making. Today,
Saudi Arabia, a country rich in Muslim history, is characterised by rapid urbanisation and construction
activities which increasingly impact the environment
and sustainable procurement issues. But the country
is a fairly new in regards to sustainability issues.
Therefore, its sustainable procurement standards are
behind those of the international and Western world
standards. For example, construction workers there
can be found to be working without safety protection
and material wastes are dumped into the ocean without considering environmental consequences. There
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4
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
is little societal or policy awareness of worker safety
and basic environmental solutions (Field 2014).
However, in recent years, there has been a focus on
viewing sustainable procurement as a tool to enhance
organisational competiveness and acceptance, and
this view would eventually contribute to Saudi
Arabia’s future national development. For example,
the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment
(PME) announced a decree giving all companies
5 years to meet procurement standards which fits
into Saudi Arabia’s plan for international development
and positioning, and must meet international benchmark standards to protect the country’s people health
and natural resources. The King Abdullah City for
Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE) Charter
was established as the lead organisation designated
to lead the diversification and competitive procurement process that emphasises education, research,
global collaboration, local integration, commercialisation, and social benefit (Informa Middle East 2014). It
is noted that procurement policies exist in Saudi
Arabia but little is known about the integration of
these policies and the extent to which they are
embedded in organisational cultures.
Having reviewed and grouped the literature into
the main practices of, and barriers to, sustainable
procurement, our study conducts an empirical investigation of the extent and implementation of sustainable procurement practices, and barriers to,
implementing sustainable procurement practices in
Saudi Arabian organisations. The next section
describes the research methods employed to generate the primary data and analysis of the data to
extend the current literature.
Research methods
Model design
This quantitative study utilised a structured questionnaire survey to collect primary data to answer the
above mentioned three research questions which
were generated from the extensive literature review
and analysis. To answer the research questions of the
study, a multivariate analysis has been conducted to
provide a useful complement to the descriptive snapshot and second, a regression analysis has been conducted to explore the relationship between obstacle
scales (created by averaging scores for the items) to
engagement in sustainable procurement and sustainable procurement dimensions. The specific regression
model that we estimated using the samples takes the
following form:
Yij ¼ β0 þ β1 Xj þ β2 Zj þ εij :
(1)
where Yij stands for the extent of organisation j’s
engagement with dimension i of sustainable
procurement, Xj is a vector of explanatory variables
(6 obstacle scales) which are expected to shape organisations’ engagement with sustainable procurement,
and Zj is a vector of control variables (types of organisation, types of ownership of the organisation, education levels of the respondents, and length of time
the respondents are working as procurement director/
manager).
Questionnaire design
Based on the in-depth literature review and analysis,
the survey instruments were developed and then
pre-tested and validated by a focus group. The
group comprised of two sustainable procurement
academic experts from King Abdulaziz University,
Jeddah and two procurement directors/managers,
one from a public organisation and the other from
a private organisation in Saudi Arabia. The duration
of completing the survey was determined to be
20 minutes, and the format was confirmed as
being appropriate with language levels understood
as the survey was conducted in both English and
Arabic by undertaking Triandis (1983) back-to-back
translation approach. The population sample was
comprised of staff employed as procurement directors/managers of organisations operating across various sectors in Saudi Arabia.
Sample design and selection
After getting the ethical clearance from the Deanship
of Scientific Research at King Abdulaziz University, the
revised questionnaire was first administered through
postal mail by two trained enumerators to a systematic random sample of 400 procurement directors/
managers (200 public and 200 private organisations)
employed in public and private organisations in different locations of Saudi Arabia. The enumerators
have then followed up with those potential respondents (i.e. procurement directors/managers) to confirm time for a face-to-face interview appointment
with them. Out of those 400 procurement directors/
managers, who were provided with the questionnaire
earlier, a total of 202 of them agreed to be interviewed at an appointed time of their convenience.
So, the sample used in the study comprised of 202
procurement directors/senior managers across various
Saudi Arabian organisational sectors (manufacturing,
agriculture, construction, services, SMEs, and mining)
yielding a response rate of 50.5%, which according to
Hair et al. (2006) is acceptable for such surveys. A
minimum of 10% of completed surveys were independently monitored and validated in real time by the
project leader. The survey provides insights into the
collective opinions of the respondents on a wide
range of topics and their ‘best practices’.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
Table 1. Distribution of organisations (according to type and
regions).
Questions
Region
Type of company
Elements
Central region
West region
Eastern region
Southern region
Northern region
Construction
Manufacturing
SMEs
Agriculture
Service
Mining
Number & (%)
89 (44%)
60 (30%)
40 (20%)
8 (4%)
5 (2%)
54 (26.9%)
53 (26.2%)
28 (13.9%)
5 (2.5%)
60 (29.9%)
2 (1%)
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Source: Data from Ministry of Commerce and Industry (2011), Datarabia
(2010).
We believe that the demographic representation and
the distribution of the size of participating companies are
the important measure of their representativeness. The
distribution of companies in terms of ratios of companies
is presented in Table 1. Demographic representation was
taken into consideration as the survey attempted to
cover whole Saudi Arabia. According to Ministry of
Commerce and Industry (2013), proportions of companies to Central, West, Eastern, Southern, and Northern
regions are 43%, 30%, 21%, 4%, and 2%, respectively. In
the sample selection, the same proportions of companies
were maintained in order to achieve demographic representation. In addition, the distribution of the respondent
companies was compared with the national distribution
reported by Datarabia.com (2010) to check the representative nature of the respondents. For example, the proportions of respondents in this study were drawn from
construction sector (26.9%), manufacturing sector
(26.2%), services sector (29.9%), SMEs (13.9%), agriculture
sector (2.5%), and mining sector (1.0%). These proportions were close to the national distributions of construction, manufacturing, services, SMEs, agriculture, mining,
and other sectors (i.e. 27.0%, 26.0%, 30.8%, 10.10%, 2.0%,
0.5%, and 3.6%, respectively). Therefore, it can be argued
that the respondents closely represent the national distribution of companies.
Measure of the constructs
Sustainable procurement practices: We utilised the 14item purchasing social responsibility (PSR) scale which
was developed by Carter and Rogers (2008) as a proxy
measure of procurement directors/senior managers’
practices due to the lack of availability of a published
and validated measure of sustainable procurement
practices. The PSR examined following five purchasing
components:
(1) environment (example item: currently our purchasing function uses a life-cycle analysis to
evaluate the environmental friendliness of products and packaging);
5
(2) diversity (example item: currently our purchasing function has a MWBE supplier purchase
programme);
(3) human rights (example item: currently our purchasing function asks suppliers to pay a ‘living
wage’ greater than a country’s or region’s minimum wage);
(4) philanthropy (example item: currently our purchasing function donates to philanthropic
organisations); and
(5) safety (example item: currently our purchasing
function ensures that suppliers’ locations are
operated in a safe manner)
However, responses provided by the procurement
director/managers were ranked on the 5-point Likert
scale, where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly
agree. The PSR scales were shown to have acceptable
internal consistency (as alpha coefficients for the
scales ranged from 0.73–0.86) and evidence of content and construct validity. In addition, another
dimension (procurement of small and local firms) of
sustainable procurement developed by Walker &
Brammer (2009) was utilised as it showed acceptable
content and construct validity and internal consistency with Cronbach’s coefficient value of higher
than 0.70.
Sustainable procurement barriers: No common scale
addressing sustainable procurement barriers was
found in the literature. Several studies were conducted addressing the ‘barriers to sustainable procurement practices’ from various aspects. We
identified an initial list of 27 items from the past
literature to represent the barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement practices. Factor
analysis with varimax rotation was also conducted to
validate the dimensionality and appropriateness of
the measurement scale and the results, including
reliability and validity, have been presented in
Table 3 below in the results and discussion section.
The result of the establishment of six latent factors
that can be labelled as follows: financial (example
item: ‘higher cost of sustainable materials and products’); capacity (example item: lack of skills or training of staff at all levels); attitude or culture (example
item: lack of top management commitment); leadership (example item: lack of regulation on sustainable
procurement by local and central government); policies and strategies (example item: insufficient simple
and clear written sustainable procurement policies
and strategies); and product quality and supplier
availability (example item: lack of sustainable sources
of supply). The construct validity and reliability of the
latent factors was confirmed, according to the suggestion of Hair et al. (2010), by evaluating the convergent
validity (i.e. factor loadings of respective measured
items are higher than 0.50), the discriminant validity
6
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
(i.e. average variance extracted is higher than squared
of the correlation value), and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (i.e. lowest acceptable limit of coefficients is
higher than 0.7).
coefficient is 0.7). The reliability (internal consistency)
of the latent factors confirms that the measurement
instruments are reliable.
Statistical analysis
Results and analysis
Demographics
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The demographic information of this study sample is
presented in Table 2. The sample was comprised of
52% public and 48% private organisations. The majority of organisations, approximately 83%, were locally
owned. The breakdown of educational levels of
respondents is as follows: 12.7% were less than high
school educated; 6.9% completed high school; 14.7%
completed a diploma qualification; and 65.7% completed a university degree.
Descriptive statistics
Reliability tests were conducted as a measure of the
internal consistency on all the research instruments
utilised in this study. In order to test whether all the
items in the Carter and Rogers (2008) and Brammer
and Walker (2011) studies measure the same constructs in this study, a confirmatory factor analysis
was conducted and this analysis produced six items
which measured the six aspects of sustainable procurement practices as being environment, diversity,
human rights, philanthropy, safety, and purchasing
from small and local firms. The result of the analysis
is presented in Table 3 below.
As can be seen in Table 3, the construct validity
and reliability of the latent factors is confirmed,
according to Hair et al. (2010), by evaluating the convergent validity (i.e. factor loadings of respective measured items are higher than 0.50), the discriminate
validity (i.e. average variance extracted is higher than
squared of the correlation value), and Cronbach’s
alpha coefficients (i.e. lowest acceptable limit of
Table 2. Distribution of sample by job position, education
level and service period of the respondents, and types and
ownerships of the organisations.
Questions
Job position
Education level
Length of service period
Type of organisations
Type of ownerships
Elements
Procurement director
Procurement manager
Less than high school
High school
Diploma
University
Less than 1 year
1– 5 years
6–10 years
11–15 years
More than 15 years
Local
Foreign
Public
Private
Number (%)
81
121
26
14
30
132
16
80
56
27
23
168
34
105
97
(40.1%)
(59.9%)
(12.7%)
(6.9%)
(14.7%)
(65.7%)
(7.9%)
(39.6%)
(27.7%)
(13.4%)
(11.3%)
(83%)
(17%)
(52%)
(48%)
The respondents were asked to rate the current level
of implementation of sustainable procurement practices in their organisations. The findings of the current
levels to which 16 aspects of sustainable procurement
practices were currently well established within an
organisation’s procurement practices have been presented in Table 4 below.
The results reported that all participating organisations implemented seven out of 16 aspects of sustainable procurement. For example, the implemented
sustainable procurement practices among the
sampled organisations ‘used a life-cycle analysis to
evaluate the environmental friendliness of products
and packaging (3.99)’, ‘asked suppliers to commit to
waste reduction goals (3.84)’, ‘reduced packaging
material (3.83)’, ‘donated to philanthropic organisations (3.80)’, ‘volunteered at or for local charities
(3.70)’, ‘participated in the design of products for
recycling or reuse (3.34)’, and ‘participated in the
design of products for disassembly (3.10).
The independent samples ‘t-test results in Table 4
identified that overall, the private- and foreign-owned
organisations were found well ahead than the publicand local-owned organisations in the engagement of
sustainable procurement activities except one aspect
which is purchase from local firms. The mean scores
for the aspects of sustainable procurement that asked
suppliers to commit to waste reduction goals; reduce
packaging material; donate to philanthropic organisations; and purchase from small suppliers for the private sector organisations were significantly (p ≤ 0.05)
greater than the public sector organisations, while the
remainder of sustainable procurement practices were
statistically insignificant (p ≥ 0.1). The potential reasons could be growing social pressure from environmentally concerned customers and brand strategy as
brand value will soon be included in a company’s
valuation. Interestingly, both types of organisations
embrace the same aspects of sustainable procurement practices on a priority basis. The mean values
for the aspects of sustainable procurement that asked
suppliers to commit to waste reduction goals, and
donate to philanthropic organisations for the foreign-owned
organisations
were
significantly
(p ≤ 0.05) larger than the local-owned organisations,
while the remainder of sustainable procurement practices were statistically insignificant (p ≥ 0.1).
Remarkably, both types of organisations adopt the
same aspects of sustainable procurement practices
on a priority basis. The probable reason for this finding could be international legal and regulatory
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
7
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Table 3. Explanatory factor analysis of the indicators of sustainable procurement practices and barriers’ dimensions, and their
reliability and validity.
Factors
Factor loadings Cronbach’s ‘α’ AVE† (r2)‡
Sustainable procurement (SP) practices (KMO measures-0.809)
0.89
Environment
0.87
0.622 0.153
Uses a life-cycle analysis to evaluate the environmental friendliness of products and packaging.
0.875
Asks suppliers to commit to waste reduction goals.
0.821
Reduces packaging material
0.812
Participates in the design of products for disassembly.
0.721
Participates in the design of products for recycling or reuse.
0.702
Diversity
0.83
0.506 0.176
Has a formal minority and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) supplier purchase programme.
0.694
Purchase from MWBE defined suppliers.
0.728
Safety
0.84
0.566 0.116
Ensures the safe incoming movement of product to our facilities.
0.784
Ensures that suppliers’ location is operated in a safe manner.
0.719
Human rights
0.72
0.503 0.153
Visits suppliers’ plants to ensure that they are not using sweatshop labour.
0.722
Ensures that suppliers comply with child labour laws.
0.696
Asks suppliers to pay a ‘living wage’ greater than the country’s or region’s minimum wage.
0.710
Philanthropy
0.76
0.570 0.151
Volunteers at/for local charities.
0.737
Donates to philanthropic organisations.
0.772
Purchase from local and small firms
0.82
0.736 0.176
Purchases from local suppliers.
0.891
Purchases from small suppliers.
0.824
Barriers to SP practices (KMO measures-0.844)
0.90
Financial
0.76
0.556 0.152
Lack of funding.
0.811
Restriction on expenditures.
0.751
Higher cost of sustainable materials and products.
0.724
Reluctance to incur higher capital cost when needed.
0.690
Capacity
0.72
0.569 0.152
Lack of skills/training of all levels of staff.
0.780
Lack of familiarity with concept and policies of SP.
0.782
Week information exchange system/poor communication.
0.743
Lack of tools, guidelines, and manuals.
0.764
Lack of awareness programmes such as workshop, seminar.
0.699
Attitude/culture
0.81
0.604 0.053
Lack of top management commitment.
0.910
Lack of dedication and support for SP at all levels of staff.
0.822
Insufficient SP link into whole company approach
0.811
Lack of integrity within every authority
0.710
Lack of transparency
0.773
Insufficient written procurement procedures and check list.
0.695
Lack of recognition that sustainability is the central to the core business and success.
0.697
Leadership
0.77
0.499 0.068
Lack of commitment by local and central government.
0.771
Lack of incentives by local and central government.
0.741
Lack of regulations on SP by local and central government.
0.645
Resistance to change by local and central government.
0.661
Policies and strategies
0.74
0.574 0.103
Insufficient simple and clear written SP policies and strategies
0.789
Lack of interagency collaboration.
0.628
Inconsistence policies.
0.821
Lack of a clear framework of priorities.
0.779
Product quality and supplier availability
0.71
0.572 0.102
Less availability of sustainable materials and sustainably produced goods and services.
0.823
Lack of sustainable sources of supply.
0.752
Weak relationship with suppliers.
0.687
†AVE = ΣXi2/n (number of items i = 1,. . ., n; Xi, factor loading).
‡r2, the highest squared correlation between the factor of interest and the remaining factors.
pressure on foreign-owned organisations to adopt
sustainable procurement practices.
Moreover, the results show that compared with
other sectors, the agriculture sector placed greater
emphasis on using life-cycle analysis to evaluate the
environmental friendliness of products and packaging
(p ≤ 0.05). The potential explanation for this result
could be climate change which poses specific challenges for this sector, with mounting public concern
and media scrutiny about the way food is grown and
distributed through markets. As well, there is increasing domestic and international legal and regulatory
pressures to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
While manufacturing and construction organisations
are significantly well ahead of other organisations in
implementing most of the aspects of sustainable procurement practices compared with the other sectors.
The probable reasons for this result could be the
Saudi government issued a decree that required all
construction and manufacturing companies to meet
3.98
3.17
3.33
3.02
3.13
3.05
2.98
3.02
2.99
3.06
3.8
3.96
3.1
3.02
2.82
2.93
2.93
2.87
2.85
2.94
3.6
3.64
2.71
2.84
4
3.68
3.67
3.04
3.35
2.81
FOw
(2)
4.2
LOw
(1)
3.78
2.46
3.02
3.09
2.75
3.11
2.82
3
3.3
2.7
2.6
3.3
3.12
3.25
2.7
3.2
MAI
(3)
3.5
3.15
3.02
3.02
2.85
2.8
2.83
3.75
4
3
3.01
4.1
3
3.35
3
4
AGRI
(4)
4.55
3.51
2.81
2.29
3.03
3.06
3.06
4.2
4
3
3.3
3.65
3.1
3.25
3
4
SME
(5)
3.4
3.04
3.01
2.96
3.01
2.91
2.9
3.6
3.63
3.1
2.9
3.73
3.05
3.38
3.1
3.73
SER
(6)
3.59
3.05
3.1
3.21
3.05
2.95
3.6
3.89
3.77
3
3.05
3.94
3.1
3.3
3
4.09
CONS
(7)
4.47
2.64
3.03
3.14
3
2.69
3
3.78
4.15
2.65
2.71
4.27
3.3
3.52
2.65
4.03
MANU
(8)
4.44
3.07
3.05
2.92
3.01
3.08
3.12
3.86
4.08
2.66
3.05
4.2
3.15
3.53
3.16
4.08
PriO
(9)
4.1
2.87
2.93
2.99
2.86
2.76
2.88
3.55
3.53
3.16
2.8
3.45
3.05
3.16
2.66
3.6
PubO
(10)
3.87
2.97
2.99
2.95
2.94
2.92
3.00
3.70
3.80
2.91
2.93
3.83
3.10
3.34
2.91
3.84
Overall
mean
3.99
None
None
(5–6)*(5–7)**
None
None
None
(3–7)**(3–8)*(3–5)*
(9–10)**(1–2)*(6–8)*(3–8)**
(9–10)*
(9–10)*
Sig. diff. groups
(6–7)*(6–8)*(5–7)**(3–7)*
(5–8)*(4–5)*(3–4)**
(9–10)**(1–2)*(3–7)**(3–8)*
(3–4)*
(9–10)* (3–8)*
None
None
(9–10)*
Low: Local ownership, FOw: Foreign ownership, MAI: Mining, AGRI: Agricultural, SME: Small and medium enterprise, SER: Service, CONS: Construction, MANU: Manufacturing, PriO: Private organisation, PubO: Public organisation.
*Significant at the 0.05 level, **Significant at the 0.01 level.
Reduces packaging material
Participates in the design of products for disassembly.
Participates in the design of products for recycling or reuse.
Has a formal minority and women-owned business enterprise (MWBE) supplier purchase
programme.
Purchase from MWBE defined suppliers.
Ensures the safe incoming movement of product to our facilities.
Ensures that suppliers’ location is operated in a safe manner.
Visits suppliers’ plants to ensure that they are not using sweatshop labour.
Ensures that suppliers comply with child labour laws.
Asks suppliers to pay a ‘living wage’ greater than the country’s or region’s minimum wage.
Volunteers at/for local charities.
Donates to philanthropic organisations.
Purchases from local suppliers.
Purchases from small suppliers.
Sustainable procurement practices
Uses a life-cycle analysis to evaluate the environmental friendliness of products and
packaging.
Asks suppliers to commit to waste reduction goals.
Table 4. Organisational and sectoral variation in items of sustainable procurement practices in terms of mean value.
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8
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
9
environmental and philanthropy), while the remainder dimensions of sustainable procurement practices were found to be statistically insignificant.
Potential explanations for this result could be that
in different industry contexts, the concept holds
differing value and interest, different role of financial perspective, and different boundaries of sustainable procurement tools in a public and a private
organisation. For example, the private sector is
profit-driven, so it needs to consider community
trends and their customers’ interests. The findings
suggest that organisations in Saudi Arabia give
emphasis on environmental and philanthropy practices rather than employee’s health, safety, and
rights as well as the betterment of small and local
industries.
To uncover the main barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement practices, the respondents were requested to show their level of agreement
to their organisation’s existing sustainable procurement
barriers. Table 6 below presents the ‘barriers’ to sustainable procurement which are reported by organisation’s
procurement directors/senior managers. The final column shows that the mean values for all of the barriers
are above 3.50. This indicates that procurement directors/senior managers, regardless of organisations and
sectors, strongly agree with the barriers suggested in
this study.
new resource consumption standards in order to
address sustainable practices (The Guardian 2015). In
contrast, the SMEs placed greater emphasis on buying
from MWBE and small suppliers; and volunteered at or
for local charities than other sectors. The potential
reasons for this finding could be MWBE, local charities,
and SMS are all rooted in the community. Co-operation often emerges naturally as a result of being part
of the local community which leads them for mutual
benefits.
Table 5 below provides a representation of the variation in implementation of five dimensions of sustainable
procurement practices in Saudi Arabia. The last column of
the table provides the mean values for each individual
dimension across all the organisations surveyed and
those mean values are created by averaging all item
responses on 5-point Likert scale. The last column indicates an insight into which sustainable procurement
practices are most commonly implemented in participating organisations in Saudi Arabia. Only two dimensions of
sustainable procurement practices such as aspects of
environmental (3.62) and philanthropy (3.75) were
found most prevalent among sampled organisations.
The results of independent-samples t-test
revealed that the private sector organisations were
significantly well ahead than the public sector organisations in adopting above two dimensions of sustainable procurement practices (i.e. aspects of
Table 5. Organisational and sectoral variation in dimensions of sustainable procurement practices in terms of mean value.
Sustainable practices
Environmental
Diversity
Safety
Human rights
Philanthropy
Purchasing from small
and local firms.
LOw
(1)
3.50
2.82
2.93
2.89
3.62
2.78
FOw
(2)
3.74
3.08
3.02
3.02
3.88
3.06
MAI
(3)
3.27
2.58
3.06
2.89
3.15
2.65
AGRI
(4)
3.80
3.08
3.02
2.83
3.88
3.01
SME
(5)
3.48
3.26
2.55
3.05
4.10
3.15
SER
(6)
3.50
3.07
2.99
2.94
3.62
3.00
CONS
(7)
3.78
3.03
3.16
3.20
3.83
3.03
MANU
(8)
3.91
2.65
3.09
2.90
3.97
2.68
PriO
(9)
3.81
3.12
2.99
3.07
3.97
2.86
PubO
(10)
3.43
2.77
2.96
2.83
3.54
2.98
Overall
mean
3.62
2.94
2.97
2.95
3.75
2.92
Sig. diff.
groups
(9–10)*(3–7)*(3–8)*
(6–8)*
None
None
(9–10)*(3–8)*
(5–8)*(3–5)**
LOw: Local ownership, FOw: Foreign ownership, MAI: Mining, AGRI: Agricultural, SME: Small and medium enterprise, SER: Service, CONS: Construction,
MANU: Manufacturing.
PriO: Private organisation, PubO: Public organisation.
*Significant at the 0.05 level.
**Significant at the 0.01 level.
Table 6. Organisational and sectoral variation in barriers to sustainable procurement practices in terms of mean value.
Barriers to sustainable procurement
Financial
Capacity
Attitude/culture
Leadership
Policies and strategies
Product quality and supplier availability
LOw
(1)
3.71
3.85
3.94
3.43
3.69
3.55
FOw
(2)
3.87
4.07
4.04
3.90
3.47
3.77
MAI
(3)
3.60
3.70
3.97
3.65
3.75
3.40
AGRI
(4)
4.00
4.25
4.08
4.63
3.75
4.38
SME
(5)
3.80
4.07
3.80
3.40
3.10
3.20
SER
(6)
3.80
3.91
3.87
3.40
3.93
3.80
CONS
(7)
3.93
3.85
3.96
3.27
3.61
3.44
MANU
(8)
3.46
3.88
4.07
3.67
3.46
3.46
PriS
(9)
3.65
4.02
4.04
3.56
3.56
3.71
PubS
(10)
3.81
3.76
3.84
3.46
3.75
3.44
Overall
mean
3.74
3.89
3.94
3.51
3.66
3.57
Sig. diff. groups
None
None
None
(4–6)**(4–7)**(4–8)**
(5–6)*
(4–7)*(4–8)*
LOw: Local ownership, FOw: Foreign ownership, MAI: Mining, AGRI: Agricultural, SME: Small and medium enterprise, SER: Service, CONS: Construction,
MANU: Manufacturing.
PriS: Private sector, PubS: Public sector.
*Significant at the 0.05 level.
**Significant at the 0.01 level.
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10
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
The findings of the study reveal that there is no significant difference between local and foreign owners, and
private and public organisations. The attitude of top
management and the cultural aspect of an organisation’s
operation (attitude or culture) is found to be clearly identified as the main barrier to effectively implementing
sustainable procurement, followed by the aspects of
organisational capacity, financial capacity, and policies
and strategies. The majority of the respondents felt that
there is a substantial lacking of clear direction and commitment from top management to make carrying sustainable development objectives through to procurement a
priority. In particular, there is a lack of recognition that
sustainability is the central to the core of business and
success. This finding is contrary to previously reported
results in other studies (e.g. Brammer & Walker 2011;
Islam et al. 2014). Lack of understanding about sustainability and its relationship to procurement, and focus on
economic consideration may be a possible explanation
for this contradiction of results. In terms of sectoral variation, Table 6 above shows that top three barriers to
sustainable procurement practices are statistically
insignificant across the six sectors. The mean scores for
lack of commitment, lack of incentives, and lack of regulations by local and central government; lack of policies and
strategies; and deficiency of product quality and supplier
availability for the agricultural sector are all found to be
statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) and greater than the
other sectors. The small number of respondents from
this sector could be the probable reason for this result.
Regression analysis
The study has conducted a multiple regression analysis to
explore the relationships between the scales of sustainable procurement practices and barriers. The analysis
allows us to assess the significance of barriers for individual dimension of sustainable procurement practices. So,
the findings provide a new insight into strategies to
advance sustainable procurement which may assist practitioners in taking right courses of action that make the
implementation of this sustainable procurement practices more effective. Table 7 reports the result of the
regression analysis. Each of the models 1–6 discovers
Table 7. The relationships between engagement in aspects of and perceived barriers to sustainable procurement.
Environment
model-1
Barriers to sustainable procurement
Financial
Capacity
Attitude/culture
Leadership
Policies and strategies
Product quality and supplier
availability
Controlled variables
Constant
Type of organisation (1 for
public organisation, 0 for
private)
Ownership of organisation (1
for local organisation, 0 for
foreign)
Education level (1 for high
school and 0 for otherwise)
Education level (1 for diploma
and 0 for otherwise)
Education level (1 for graduate
and 0 for otherwise)
Education level (1 for post
graduate and 0 for
otherwise)
Length of time for working as
Procurement Director/
Manager (1 for 1–5 years, 0
for otherwise)
Length of time for working as
Procurement Director/
Manager (1 for 6–10 years, 0
for otherwise)
Length of time for working as
Procurement Director/
Manager (1 for 11–15 years,
0 for otherwise)
Length of time for working as
Procurement Director/
Manager (1 for more than
15 years, 0 for otherwise)
R2(%)
0.055
−0.300
−0.042
0.056
−0.108
0.128
(0.068)
(0.147)*
(0.124)
(0.078)
(0.087)
(0.091)
Safety model-2
−0.024
0.192
0.063
−0.039
0.035
−0.140
(0.073)
(0.108)*
(0.133)
(0.084)
(0.094)
(0.098)
Diversity
model-3
−0.360
−0.096
−0.040
0.210
0.150
0.287
Human rights
model-4
Philanthropy
model-5
SME/local model6
(0.099)*** 0.048 (0.080)
0.149 (0.073)*
0.200 (0.088)*
(0.101)
0.052 (0.118)
−0.154 (0.108)
−0.105 (0.130)
(0.181)
−0.535 (0.145)*** −0.450 (0.132)*** −0.218 (0.160)*
(0.114)*
0.044 (0.091)
0.034 (0.083)
0.143 (0.101)
(0.127)
0.130 (0.102)
0.065 (0.093)
0.003 (0.112)
(0.133)*
0.025 (0.106)
0.222 (0.097)*
0.194 (0.117)
2.691 (0.667)*** 2.765 (0.716)*** 0.959 (0.971)
−0.388 (0.149)** −0.003 (0.160)
−0.149 (0.217)
0.468 (0.778)
−0.178 (0.174)
0.315 (0.191)
−0.151 (0.205)
−0.006 (0.278)
−0.001 (0.222)
0.012 (0.203)
0.306 (0.246)
−0.200 (0.318)
0.052 (0.341)
0.073 (0.462)
−0.208 (0.371)
−0.010 (0.339)
0.594 (0.409)
0.127 (0.261)
0.288 (0.280)
−0.155 (0.380)
−0.193 (0.305)
0.042 (0.279)
0.064 (0.336)
−0.035 (0.217)
0.375 (0.233)
−0.481 (0.316)
−0.422 (0.253)
−0.304 (0.231)
0.020 (0.279)
−0.023 (0.306)
0.480 (0.329)
0.151 (0.446)
1.172 (0.358)**
−0.080 (0.327)
−0.031 (0.395)
0.634 (0.278)*
−0.240 (0.299)
0.171 (0.405)
0.369 (0.324)
0.441 (0.297)
1.087 (0.358)***
0.164 (0.281)
−0.205 (0.302)
−0.248 (0.409)
−0.025 (0.328)
0.268 (0.300)
0.748 (0.362)*
0.193 (0.338)
−0.100 (0.363)
0.739 (0.492)
0.508 (0.394)
0.487 (0.360)
0.854 (0.435)*
0.062 (0.335)
−0.061 (0.360)
0.078 (0.488)
0.265 (0.391)
−0.133 (0.358)
0.824 (0.432)*
30.7
41.0
33.0
33.2
2.516 (0.712)*** 1.730 (0.859)*
−0.353 (0.159)*
−0.196 (0.192)
29.3
Figures in parentheses denote the standard error values of the regression coefficients.
Significance levels: *** indicate significant at 0.001 level, ** indicate significant at 0.01 level, and * indicate significant at 0.05 level.
24.5
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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
the effects of barriers on particular dimension of sustainable procurement practices. The results state that there is
a significant variation across organisations in environmental and philanthropy aspects of sustainable procurement, while no significant variations exist across the
organisations in other aspects of sustainable procurement. For example, environment and philanthropyrelated aspects of sustainable procurement practices are
significantly lower in public organisations than the private organisations (p ≤ 0.01 and p ≤ 0.05 levels, respectively). This difference largely confirmed that
organisation’s type (or nature) influences on organisational engagement with sustainable procurement practices. Interestingly, this study also found that there was
significant difference in the level of engagement in ‘buying from local and small firms’ aspects of sustainable
procurement across the length of time procurement
directors/managers work in the same company, while
no significant variations were found in other aspects of
sustainable procurement. For example, the organisations
with procurement directors/managers who are working
more than 1 year in the same organisations score significantly higher than the organisations with procurement
directors/managers who are working less than 1 year
(p ≤ 0.05 in all cases). The results also report that there
is no significant relationship between the education
levels of procurement directors/managers and engagement with aspects of sustainable procurement except
human rights aspect. It reflects that organisations with
higher-level educated procurement directors/managers
score significantly higher than other organisations
(p ≤ 0.05).
Regarding the significance of barriers in shaping
engagement with sustainable procurement, our analysis suggests that obstacles play a very important
role in shaping sustainable procurement practices.
The attitude of top management and organisational
culture are found to be the most important obstacles
to adopting sustainable procurement practices which
is supported by Hasselbalch et al. (2014) and Grandia
et al. (2015), particularly for human rights, philanthropy, and purchase from small and local firms
(p ≤ 0.05) issues. While financing is the major barrier
to embedding diversity in procurement (p ≤ 0.05)
which is similar to the findings of Brammer and
Walker (2011), the capacity has a particular impact
on organisation’s ability to integrate environmental
issues (p ≤ 0.05). This suggests that the positive attitude of top management (such as strong affective
commitment, dedication, and recognition that sustainability is the central to the core business success)
and organisational culture (such as strong sustainable
procurement link into whole organisation approach,
integrity within every authority, availability written
sustainable procurement check list), financial support,
11
and better training of human resources could enable
greater engagement with sustainable procurement.
Discussion
As emphasised in its national development plan,
Saudi Arabia is committed to effectively implementing sustainable development and has made steady
progress in its socio-economic development, gender
equity, standard of living, health, education, and
environmental legislation. But to date, the literature
identifies, no empirical study investigated the nature
and extent of barriers to sustainable procurement
practices in Saudi Arabia – a country, which exhibits
a rapid growth of population, industrialisation, and
urbanisation and a culture of socialisation strongly
devoted to religion and steeped in tradition. This
study addresses this oversight of literature and
hence highlights its significance by contributing to
the understanding of sustainable procurement in a
developing country where religion socialises its population. However, the purpose of this study was to
identify the current levels of sustainable procurement
implementation practices and the factors that could
potentially affect the adoption of sustainable procurement in Saudi Arabia. The research findings showed
that wide-ranging sustainable procurement practices
were not implemented or practiced in Saudi Arabia.
Diversity, safety, human-rights, and purchasing from
small and local firm considerations have not been
incorporated by procurement managers or directors
in their purchasing decisions. Compared to Saudi
Arabia, many countries around the world, including
the UK, Canada, the USA, Western Europe, Malaysia,
and Australia emphasise sustainable practices with
purchase from small and local firms, diversity, safety,
and human-rights orientations (Brammer & Walker
2011; Islam & Siwar 2013; Islam et al. 2014).
Regarding the overall engagement with sustainable procurement, the environmental and philanthropy aspects of sustainable procurement are found
to be the most prominent in Saudi Arabia. This finding
may be related to recent national emphasis on sustainability policies, strategies, and regulations.
National initiatives include the National Sustainable
Development Policy, National Agenda 21 or other
strategy for sustainable development, Environmental
Impact Assessment Law, and Saudi Arabia’s Ninth
National Development Plan (Ministry of Economy
and Planning 2014) with its six overarching goals
(i.e. improving standards of living, regional development, economic diversification, knowledge-based
economy and competitiveness, and human resources
including youth and women). Traditionally, Arabian
culture is focused primarily on corporate philanthropy
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12
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
and community engagement. Despite the high education levels of most procurement directors/managers
in this study, their sustainable procurement practices
into the buying process are poor. This finding contradicts the literature which predominantly states that
education is positively correlated with sustainable
procurement practices. The result in this study indicates that there is no significant relationship between
the education level of procurement director/manager
and their engagement with the aspects of sustainable
procurement, suggesting that education level is not
an obstacle to, or an implementer of, engagement
with sustainable procurement in Saudi Arabia. One
potential explanation for this finding could be that
the academic degrees that the population sample
held in this study did not include sustainability subjects in the curriculum. But this finding should be
taken with caution as the level of education of the
respondents has also produced a positive but insignificant relationship with their engagement with
some aspects of sustainable procurement, including
the safety of the resources used.
The study also reports that the private-owned
manufacturing and construction organisations are significantly more advanced than the public-owned
organisations in the engagement of sustainable procurement practices. Similarly, foreign-owned organisations are ahead of local-owned organisation in
sustainable procurement practices. These may be
attributable to their sound sustainable policies or
dealings at the international level where laws ensure
compliance to sustainable procurement practices. This
compliance ensures a company’s adherence to sustainable procurement practices in order to gain
acceptance so as to be able to do business. The
potential reason for not adopting sustainable procurement practices by local- and public-owned companies
could be the lack of special regulations for pollution
of air, water, and waste; and also the lack of local laws
that specially govern public–private partnerships
(Husein 2014). Thus, locally and public-owned companies in Saudi Arabia need to consider embedding and
complying to the various ISO standards in their organisational cultures so as to promote sustainable procurement practices in the organisations.
The findings of the majority of existing studies
report that the lack of financing is the most serious
barrier for taking sustainable procurement dimensions
into account in the purchasing process (DEFRA 2006;
Walker & Brammer 2009; Brammer & Walker 2011;
Sourani & Sohail 2011). In contrast, our study identified that the attitude of top management and the
cultural aspects of the organisational issues posed
the leading barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement. The results highlight that the
low level of commitment associated with sustainable
procurement issues exists among the procurement
decision makers in addition to the lack of dedication
from and support to staff at all levels. Most surveyed
organisations do not recognise that sustainability is
central to the core of business and success. As a
result, there were no written procurement procedures
and check list, and sufficient sustainable procurement
practices incorporated across the companies.
Accordingly, it was not mandatory for the companies
to engage in sustainable procurement practices. The
lack of capacity was also found to be another challenge to the implementation of sustainable procurement. Most of the respondents reported that skills
and training of staff at all levels were lacking and
unfamiliarity with the concept of sustainable procurement and associated policies was widespread. As a
result, it was difficult to enforce sustainability practices in the absence of organisational resources and
capacity. While the other barriers such as leadership,
policies and strategies, and availability of sustainable
products and suppliers may seem insignificant at first
glance but their connection to shaping or contributing towards negative perceptions on other aspects of
sustainable procurement is an important issue to consider. Dismantling the political barriers, transformational leadership, and great care of procurement
director/manager to balance strict social or environmental criteria with the need to source from local
markets and support capacity development for local
suppliers might make the job of the procurer better in
the most effective way of addressing negative perceptions on sustainable procurement, and they should
therefore not be ignored.
We believe that the findings of this study have
implications for the academic literature as they specifically extend and inform sustainable procurement
theory for the broader exploration of the efforts to
develop global sustainable procurement practices. For
example, this study reports that a traditional culture
where religion and tradition is dominant can provide
an inspiring factor for organisational engagement in
sustainable procurement environment and philanthropy practices. Also, this study provides a benchmark whereby one may measure sustainable
procurement progress in Saudi Arabia against the
National Sustainable Development Policy. This is justifiable as our study offers the first-ever perceptions
from procurement directors and managers about the
state of sustainable procurement practices and their
obstacles to implementation in organisations in Saudi
Arabia. It also provides an extensive sustainable procurement literature review that identifies and categorises sustainable procurement practices and
obstacles to implementing sustainable procurement
practices at organisational levels. The methodology
section, in particular, offers a research design which
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT & WORLD ECOLOGY
we believe provides a new guideline to the researchers interested in sustainable procurement practices
elsewhere in the world.
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Conclusions and recommendations
Apparently, sustainable procurement eventually leads
to sustainable development through integrating sustainability into business operations, policies, and strategies. This concept, which is gaining increased
attention at the local and international levels, is promising, especially as the world faces many environmental challenges like global warming, desertification,
pollution, poverty, poor health, and loss of biodiversity. This further emphasises the importance of integrating sustainability into organisational procurement
processes and strategies. However, attempts made by
sustainable procurement managers and directors to
respond to such demands have been hindered by
numerous barriers. This study addressed three
research questions by providing the first comprehensive overview of how organisations in Saudi Arabia
adopt sustainable procurement practices. It also identified the factors that are the leading barriers to effectively implementing sustainable procurement into
organisations in Saudi Arabia.
The findings of this study suggest that regardless of
ownerships and types of all organisations, the current
state of sustainable procurement seems overly negative. Most respondents agree that they are currently
doing environmental and philanthropy sustainable
procurement practices. The probable reasons could
be the influence of the traditional culture which is
strongly attached to religion and anchored in tradition
and social desirability bias (Levy 1981; Zerbe & Paulhus
1987). The traditional culture in Saudi Arabia, which is
based on Islamic values and in conformity with Sharia,
is focused primarily on corporate philanthropy and
community engagement, and environment. This finding illustrates the role and significance of culture, and
how socialisation theory influences spill-over theory in
a person’s personal and workplace life. As our findings
report that no remarkable progress is being made in
implementing sustainable procurement practices in
government, industry, and businesses, there remains
much to be done to take sustainable procurement
implementation to the next level. Top management’s
attitude and organisational culture are the two major
barriers to practicing sustainable procurement. In fact,
it is difficult to enforce sustainability practices in the
absence of recognition that sustainability is central to
the core of business sustainability and in turn its success. So, a positive attitude and support from the top
management as well as clear understanding of the
sustainable procurement concept, sufficient sustainable procurement integration into the whole organisational approach, and written procurement procedures
13
and checklist are pivotal to implementing sustainable
procurement practices.
Moreover, setting up of a revolving fund is important to implementing sustainable practices at the
organisational levels. The money that is saved from
reduced waste and packaging materials and energy
consumption is to be reinvested in sustainability
programmes. It is also important to use a grant
database to track upcoming research grants and
avoid missed opportunities. Partnering with other
regional government or organisations to develop
regional grant applications and applying for an
environment/sustainability levy are similarly important. Also, identifying and implementing low cost
initiatives and using the opportunity of external
funding to integrate sustainability into organisational operations are vital. At organisational levels,
ensuring sustainability initiatives as self-sustaining
as possible and improving staff capacity to work
on sustainability issues by developing an internal
sustainability committee made up of staff from different divisions are also important. Hence, organisations must support professional development
opportunities around sustainability and consider
implementing a mentoring programme to give
staff additional support in order to implement sustainable procurement practices.
Finally, resonating with Fang and Côté (2005), the
socio-economic and technological dimensions such as
further popularisation, policy system improvement,
perception and awareness raising, and technology
innovation are the key tasks and incentives for all
levels of government, enterprises, and social organisations in moving towards sustainable procurement in
particular and sustainable business at large. We
understand that the findings in this study may not
be generalisable across all developing countries due
to cultural differences and the relatively small sample
size. As the study is cross-sectional in nature, it therefore provides a snapshot of sustainable procurement
practices in the organisations at one point in time.
Future studies may consider a longitudinal study
design which is expected to overcome the limitations
of cross-sectional approaches in order to provide a
more comprehensive view of sustainable procurement
practices
impacting
on
sustainable
development.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
Funding
This work was supported by the Deanship of Scientific
Research (DSR), King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia under Grant No. 91/120/1434 (1434 is Arabic Year).
14
M. M. ISLAM ET AL.
ORCID
Md Wahid Murad
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2486-2081
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