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This study aims to examine the relationship between institutional logics and specifications quality, and how this relationship is mediated by the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour.

This study draws on insights from institutional logics theory, and legitimacy and stewardship behaviour literature. We conducted an extended literature review to gain a comprehensive understanding of “institutional logics” and their manifestations in organizational contexts, utilizing the 2000–2024 data collected from the EBSCO, Scopus and Web of Science databases, complemented with Google Scholar. We gather that institutional logics manifest in several forms, and that while some organizations may thrive on a single logic, in certain contexts institutional logics can manifest in combinations – “multiple logics or hybrids”. Based on this understanding, we developed testable research hypotheses, predicting the influences of institutional logics – professional logic, efficient service logic and delivery (market) logic, on legitimacy, stewardship behaviour and specifications quality. We then carried out an empirical study, adopting a quantitative cross-sectional survey design with a self-administered questionnaire to test the hypothesized relationships. The empirical data were obtained from 162 procuring and disposing entities in Uganda and analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique.

The study findings reveal that institutional logics exert a strong positive effect on the legitimacy of the procurement process and on stewardship behaviour, which, in turn, both positively influence specifications quality.

The study findings have implications for theory and practice. The study findings provide useful insights that support the conceptual and theoretical development of institutional logics theory and applications in procurement literature. In addition, the study findings enhance procurement managers’ understanding of the mechanisms through which institutional logics can foster specifications quality. However, considering the fact that the study was conducted in a single country context, and focused on the public sector only, the findings of the study might not be generalizable globally.

This study contributes to established knowledge about quality management and procurement by examining the legitimacy of the procurement process and stewardship behaviour of those involved in procurement processes as mechanisms through which procuring entities are able to use institutional logics to enhance specifications quality. In addition, the study highlights areas for future research that may be explored to increase understanding of the value of institutional logics in ensuring specifications quality, and the link between specifications quality and the general performance of procuring entities.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework of achieving supplier delivery performance based on contract governance mechanisms, justice perceptions and ethical behavior using cross sectional survey data from public procuring and disposing entities (PDEs) in Uganda. Public procurement contract governance covers the design, development, implementation and enforcement of contracts. It serves to align interests of the contracting parties, reduce opportunistic behavior, lower transaction costs, promote justice perceptions, improve ethical behavior and achieve value for money procurement. Poorly managed procurement contracts result in conflicts, yet in many developing countries only rich suppliers can afford to resolve disputes through courts. For other suppliers, justice is out of reach. While it has been assumed that contracts result in good performance, little research has been carried out to corroborate this assumption. In this paper we provide theoretical, empirical and policy implications of supplier delivery performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions and effects of social value orientation, expected utility, fairness in procurement procedures, the legitimacy of the procurement law and the procurement law enforcement authority on compliance with the procurement law, guidelines, procedures and regulations. Empirical research in this area is relatively sparse.

Data were collected from a sample of 110 Procurement and Disposing Entities (PDEs) and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM).

Results of the fit indices between the model and the observed data were generally good for both CFA and SEM. Results reveal that social value orientation, expected utility, legitimacy of the procurement law enforcement agency and perceptions of procedural justice were significant predictors of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) regulatory agency.

This study however has several limitations which limit the interpretation of results. First, the data are cross sectional, thus limiting monitoring changes in behaviour over time. Second, all item scales adapted in this study were not specifically developed for a public procurement regulatory environment. This means that there is need to develop specific item scales for public procurement regulatory environments.

The paper shows that the PPDA regulatory framework should revise its compliance instrument to consider social value orientation.

This paper uses constructs of social value orientation, which are largely ignored in legislated professions to predict compliance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between psychological climate, catharsis, organizational anomie, psychological wellness and ethical procurement behaviour in Ugandaʼs public sector, in order to understand better the conditions that foster or diminish procurement ethics in a developing country. Data for this study were collected from a sample of 1100 respondents out of which 460 usable questionnaires, representing a 42% response rate were received and analyzed. Results reveal that psychological climate, procurement planning and organizational anomie were significant predictors, accounting for 64% of the variance in ethical procurement behaviour. These results have both policy and managerial implications which we present and discuss in this paper.

The study focused on the influence of internal environmental communication on organizational environmental governance and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices and the mediating role of organizational environmental governance on the relationship between internal environmental communication and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices.

A cross-sectional quantitative survey design was used. The population used consisted of the central procuring and disposing entities. An actual sample size of 105 public sector firms in the central procuring and disposing entities category was used. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), SMART PLS version 4.0.1.8 and AMOS SPSS v26.

The findings show the relevancy of internal environmental communication in the achievement of organizational environmental governance and adoption of green inbound logistics practices. Further, organizational environmental governance mediates the link between internal environmental communication and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices. However, a partial mediation effect is observed, implying that both internal environmental communication and organizational environmental governance play significant roles in enhancing the adoption of green inbound logistics practices.

The study examined internal environmental communication, organizational environmental governance and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices in a public sector procurement setting. The role of proactive internal environmental communication, proactive external environmental communication, organizational environmental governance and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices in both the public and private sector procurement settings needs to be examined.

Further, the study examines internal environmental communication, organizational environmental governance and the adoption of green inbound logistics practices in a public sector procurement context. Green logistics research is much more pronounced in the third-party logistics firm context. Further, existing research takes a holistic approach when examining the green logistics concept. Whereas the green inbound logistics and green outbound logistics form the green logistics concept, the green inbound logistics concept is much more common in the public procurement settings although no significant attention has been given to it in the existing research.

The purpose of the study is to develop and test an integrated compliance model using constructs derived from the legitimacy, deterrence, institutional and stewardship theories. A Cross-sectional survey design was used to collect data from a sample of 97 out of the population of 129 Procuring and Disposing Entities which are regulated by the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority Act (PPDA). Measurement items were derived from a critical review of literature and found to be both valid and reliable with Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.7. The findings reveal that legitimacy and stewardship behavior are significant predictors of compliance to the PPDA Act, Rules and Regulations. We therefore recommend that Procuring and Disposing Entities should continue legitimizing the procurement law through involvement of all stakeholders and promote stewardship behaviors among public employees.

Procurement records are critical for the effective execution of the procurement process and have been applied as tools to measure compliance and performance of Public Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDEs) by the regulating authority in Uganda – the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA). However, the state of records in various Ugandan PDEs depicts poor records management. This situation has adversely affected the effective creation, usage and storage of public procurement records. This compromises the value and importance of records within the procurement process, with most documents being unavailable and unreliable. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between procurement records compliance, effective risk management and records management performance in Ugandan PDEs.

The study adopted a quantitative research design and used a cross-sectional survey. The researchers developed a questionnaire on the study constructs of procurement records compliance, effective risk management and records management performance using measurement scales derived from previous empirical studies which were modified to suit the current study.

The results indicate quantitative evidence of significant positive relationships between procurement records compliance, effective risk management and records management performance. Findings also reveal that procurement records compliance and effective risk management are significant predictors of record management performance. The results also suggest that effective risk management has a stronger influence on records management performance than that on procurement records compliance.

The study context is sub-Saharan Africa, and the findings are, therefore, limited to that context; they reflect existing knowledge in other contexts. The use of a standard questionnaire limited the ability to collect views about information outside the questions asked. The study was only cross-sectional, and the study variables could not be analyzed over a long time. Common methods bias remains a potential threat; future studies should use different source data.

Custodians of procurement records, that is, procurement officers, records officers and accounting officers for Ugandan PDEs need to pay special attention to prevailing records laws and policies to minimize risks associated with the poor management of records, as well as improve performance in the management of records creation, storage, retrieval, access and the preservation of vital records.

The study contributes to an important area which has not been given attention in the context of sub-Saharan Africa, especially Uganda where there is a difficulty of linking the value of records management to business processes due to a lack of quantitative evidence.

Environmental emissions are increasing in the urban areas. Much of the emissions arise from public procurement activities given that public sector firms are major customers to many supplying firms. Given the tremendous contribution, this study aims to examine the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms through assessing the impact of urban environmental governance, government environmental communication and organizational environmental governance.

Data for the study were collected in a single time period from central procuring and disposing entities (public sector firms) in the urban areas. A sample of 105 public sector firms in were used. One procurement officer and one member of the contracts committee were the key informants in the study. AMOS SPSS version 26 was used to obtain the results for the structural model and measurement model, respectively.

The findings indicate that the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms is significantly influenced by government environmental communication, organizational environmental governance and urban environmental governance. Urban environmental governance significantly influences organizational environmental governance. Urban environmental governance fully mediates the relationship between government environmental communication and public sector firms’ adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices. Also, urban environmental governance and organizational environmental governance mediate the relationship between government environmental communication and adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices.

This study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms. However, the study was conducted in a public procurement setting rather than a private sector procurement setting. Also, the study examined the impact of government environmental communication on public sector firms’ adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices ignoring the impact of internal communications made within the public sector firms on environmental issues.

This study examined the adoption of environmentally friendly urban freight logistics practices among public sector firms. Freight logistics in public sector procurement has not been given significant attention in earlier research. Emphasis is placed on sustainable public sector procurement ignoring other aspects that would help curb environmental emissions that may arise during and after the delivery of public procurement requirements.

This study focused on establishing the mediating role of opportunistic behavior in the relationship between institutional pressures and procurement cycle time (PCT) in Uganda’s central government (CG) procuring and disposing entities (PDEs). The study also sought to establish the relationship between institutional pressures and PCT, between institutional pressures and opportunity behavior and between opportunistic behavior and PCT. This study was carried out because most PDEs had failed to perform well in terms of PCT, and beneficiaries had often complained of the lengthy PCT.

The unit of analysis was 126 CG PDEs within Uganda while the unit of inquiry was three employees per PDE, namely, giving a total of 378 respondents. Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey, the study realized a response rate of 88% for the unit of analysis and 71.7% for unit of inquiry. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS 4 with focus on ascertaining regression and mediation results.

The findings show that institutional pressures negatively and significantly predict both institutional pressures and PCT (ß = –0.569**; ß = –0.688**, respectively). Also, institutional pressures and opportunistic behavior are significant predictors of PCT, predicting 60.6% change in PCT. Furthermore, opportunity behavior partially moderates the relationship between institutional pressures and PCT.

For Uganda’s CG PDEs to reduce procurement delays and to procure within PCT, they should put more emphasis on institutional pressures and curtailing opportunistic behavior. The study recommends further amendment of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets (PPDA) Act 2003 to reduce delays.

There is need for further amendment of the PPDA Act 2003 to reduce delays, especially those attributed to approvals by contracts committee and the minimum bidding period for competitive bidding.

The study explores PCT and its antecedents whose understanding is critical in exploring avenues of reducing PCT and boosting service delivery to the beneficiaries.

The PPDA Act (2003) was amended in 2014, but still the time spent in the procurement processes has remained long, hence delaying or denying citizens service delivery. This is a matter of concern to the country at large and may spill into political unrests, and yet, there is scant literature exploring PCT and its antecedents. This makes the present study one of the pioneer empirical studies on PCT, with emphasis on Uganda. This study provides a framework for examining PCT in a context where scholarly explanation of PCT is still limited.

This study sought to examine the extent to which outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust and supplier opportunistic behavior explain supplier performance in Ugandan Public Procuring and Disposing Entities (PDEs). This study was prompted by reports of long lead times, failure to match specifications, late deliveries, poor quality of services delivered, contract violations, and increased supplier cheating. Cross sectional data from 116 central government PDEs concerning outsourced contracts was collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Hierarchical regression was used to indicate what happens to a model that was developed as part of this research as different predictor variables are introduced. The findings revealed that outsourced contracts, buyer-supplier trust, and supplier opportunistic behavior are significant predictors of supplier performance. The study has both managerial and policy implications which are discussed in this paper.