Stewardship and administrative capacity in green public procurement in the Czech Republic: evidence from a large‐N survey

Background The uptake of green public procurement in the Czech Republic is known to lag behind the European standards. We trace this condition back to the adverse effects of a specific type of decision-making trade-off faced by the Czech public procurement officials, namely the trade-off between ste...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Plaček, Michal, Valentinov, Vladislav, Del Campo Campos, Cristina, Vaceková, Gabriela, Ochrana, František, Šumpíková, Markéta
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/102975
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/102975
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Green public procurement
Stewardship
Administrative capacity
Large-N survey
Czech Republic
Administración pública
Estadística aplicada
5909 Administración Pública
1209 Estadística
Descripción
Sumario:Background The uptake of green public procurement in the Czech Republic is known to lag behind the European standards. We trace this condition back to the adverse effects of a specific type of decision-making trade-off faced by the Czech public procurement officials, namely the trade-off between stewardship and administrative compliance. The trade-off means that public procurers are aware of administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious non-perfunctory implementation of green public procurement. Results The overall result is that public procurers ultimately come to prioritize the contract criterion of the lowest price over ecological criteria. The existence of this trade-off has been generally confirmed by the results of a unique large-N survey of more than 1100 respondents from a group of local public officials and mayors in the Czech Republic. Conclusion We have found that the decision-making of Czech public procurers is affected by the trade-off between stewardship and administrative compliance, which turn out to be mutually conflicting goals. On the one hand, many public procurers do possess a stewardship motivation that shapes their positive attitude to GPP. On the other hand, they are painfully aware of, and seek to forestall, administrative risks and complications attendant on the conscientious, i.e., non-perfunctory, implementation of GPP.