Bringing Social Procurement into Public Management Research

As the largest buyers in the economy, government have enormous purchasing power. Public procurement, therefore, can be leveraged for social outcomes, such as helping marginalized communities, and reducing negative environmental impacts. However, as yet, there is little understanding about the extent of social procurement research, how it has evolved, and how public management scholarship has assessed it. We provide a framework for organizing research around social public procurement. We conduct a systematic review of research on social public procurement to understand the state of knowledge and identify critical gaps and research opportunities for public managers and public management scholars.