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MotivatinggreenpublicprocurementinChina:Anindividuallevelperspective

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QinghuaZhu

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YongGeng

ShanghaiJiaoTongUniversity

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JosephSarkis

WorcesterPolytechnicInstitute

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Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e95

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Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jenvman

Motivating green public procurement in China: An individual level perspective

Qinghua Zhu a, Yong Geng b,*, Joseph Sarkis c

a Institute of Eco-Planning and Development, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, PR ChinabCircular Economy and Industrial Ecology Research Group, Key Lab on Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academyof Sciences (CAS), Shenyang, Liaoning Province 110016, PR ChinacGraduate School of Management, Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 23 November 2012Received in revised form1 April 2013Accepted 11 April 2013Available online

Keywords:Government green procurementEmpirical researchModerationSurveyGreen purchasingPolicyChina

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 24 83970372; faxE-mail address: gengyong@iae.ac.cn (Y. Geng).

0301-4797/$ e see front matter � 2013 Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.04.009

a b s t r a c t

Green public procurement (GPP) practices have been recognized as an effective policy tool for sustain-able production and consumption. However, GPP practices adoption, especially in developing countries,is still an issue. Seeking to help understand these adoption issues, we develop a conceptual model whichhypothesizes moderation effects of GPP knowledge on the relationships between GPP drivers andpractices. Using primary data collected from 193 Chinese government officials, we find that regulations,rewards & incentive gains, and stakeholders exert pressure to motivate adoption of GPP practices.Knowledge of GPP regulations, responsibilities and experiences in developed countries is found to belimited. The study also found that voluntary regulations may actually be demotivating GPP practices. Thisstudy contributes to further theoretical and practical understanding of GPP practices. The findings can behelpful for policy makers, especially those in developing countries, to establish promotion and diffusionmechanisms for GPP practices as an important sustainable development tool.

� 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Developed countries spend over 10% of gross domestic producton their public procurement. Globally over six trillion US dollarswere spent on public procurement in 2011. This purchasingmagnitude can prove to be a significant policy instrument. Greenpublic procurement (GPP) is one approach to further environ-mental policy (Testa et al., 2012). GPP can be defined as a method toreduce environmental impact of purchased products through theirwhole life cycles by encouraging manufacturers to implementenvironmentally friendly product design and production (Parikka-Alhola, 2008) through public purchasing effort. In this way GPP hasbeen recognized as an effective way to develop capacity for greensupplies and markets (Ho et al., 2010). In addition to reducinggovernmental agencies’ social and environmental footprints, GPPpractices have been found to stimulate sustainable behaviors in theprivate sector (Brammer and Walker, 2011). Given the socio-economic breadth of this purchasing influence, GPP has beenhighlighted internationally (Nissinen et al., 2009; Testa et al., 2012;Varnas et al., 2009).

: þ86 24 83970371.

All rights reserved.

China has become one of the global leaders in public procure-ment. In 2011, the total amount of public procurement wasover RMB 5 trillion (about 762.5 billion US dollars) includingadministrative expenditures, education, health, public housing,transportation and energy (Zhong, 2012). As a result, even in arecessionary period, rapid economic growth and industrialization,with commensurate environmental degradation, has made GPPcritical in China’s development. Although a planned economy, withgovernment a critical part of all aspects of economic and socialdevelopment, barriers to GPP in China still exist. For example, un-clear regulatory requirements, cost for GPP, and low environmentalawareness by procurement personnel have been observed tohinder GPP practices (Geng and Doberstein, 2008). Adoptingdeveloped countries’ practices, China has proactively soughtimplementation of GPP since 2004. Yet, Chinese governments stillfind effective GPP promotion a major challenge (Wang et al., 2011).

Although GPP is gaining increased attention, studies on GPPpractices are still limited, especially in comparison to private sectorgreen purchasing. Most GPP studies are qualitative with adescriptive focus (Ho et al., 2010; Preuss and Walker, 2011), and afew quantitative survey-based studies (Nissinen et al., 2009;Walker and Brammer, 2009) are primarily on developed countrypractices. Broad-based empirical studies have only started to gaintraction in this field.

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e9586

One additional area of topical concern that has seen even lessinvestigation is that of individual level analysis of GPP practices.Changing individual behaviors was identified as a key factor toimplement GPP practices successfully (Meehan and Bryde, 2011).Influencing and motivating individual officials and personnel toimplement GPP practices requires further research. In this study,we initially develop a conceptual model to examine if and howcertain pressures and drivers, especially external ones, and GPP-related knowledge can increase GPP practices among individualofficials.

Using data from a Chinese municipality we identify constructsfor GPP practices (general products and service preference, greenlogistics, and green supplier monitoring) and drivers (regulations,rewards and incentive gains, and non-regulatory stakeholders) aswell as their relationships. Moderation effects of individual GPPknowledge a third construct (defined by knowledge of detail reg-ulatory requirements, responsibilities, and experiences in devel-oped countries) are also examined. Our findings provide policyimplications on how to better promote GPP practices, especially inthe Chinese context. The implications are generalizable to othercountry contexts but limitations to the generalizationsmay occur tocultural factors that must be considered.

This study’s contributions include developing a conceptualmodel for GPP practices motivation. The conceptual model togetherwith developed items on GPP pressures and drivers, and GPP-related knowledge and practices extends theoretical developmentfor GPP practices. We also identify moderation effects of GPP-related knowledge on the relationship between GPP pressureand/or drivers and GPP practices adoption. The results providepractical and research implications that set the stage for additionalstudies, studies that can also be applied to other country contexts.

To achieve our research goals, we provide a theoretical foun-dation and hypotheses in Section 2. In Section 3, the methodolog-ical discussion details aspects of the sample and statistical analysiswhich we will use to evaluate the hypotheses. The results anddiscussions on the findings of relationships among pressure/driversand GPP practices, and moderation effects of GPP-related knowl-edge are discussed in Section 4. Our final section summarizes ourwork while identifying future research directions.

2. Literature review and hypotheses

Environmental management practices such as GPP can improveboth environmental and economic performance (Schaltegger andSynnestvedt, 2002). To examine GPP practices motivation, wefirst introduce the theoretical framework (see Fig. 1). Externalpressure such as from regulations can stimulate GPP practiceswhile officials need tools and knowledge to effectively implementGPP practices (Testa et al., 2012). In this model, we posit thatvarious drivers and pressures can motivate adoption of GPP prac-tices while GPP knowledge moderates this motivation.

Pressures/Drivers - Regulations

- Rewards and incentive gains

- Non-governmental

stakeholders

GPP practices -Green products and service

preference

-Green logistics

-Green supplier monitoring

Knowledge -Detail regulatory requirements

-Responsibilities

-Experiences in developed countries

Fig. 1. A conceptual model for GPP practices motivation.

GPP practices can be defined as integrating environmentalconcerns into public procurement processes (Bolton, 2008).Thus, the GPP practices construct in this paper includes greenproducts and service preference (GP), green logistics (GL) and greensupplier monitoring (GS). Drivers can derive from regulations,non-governmental stakeholders and rewards & incentive gains.Knowledge, as a construct, can include knowledge about detailedregulatory requirements, responsibilities and experiences ofdeveloped country practices. Additional details on factor develop-ment will be introduced in the next subsections, and constructoperationalization will be presented in the methodology section.

2.1. GPP practices at the individual level

The first dimension of GPP practices is green product or servicespreference (GP). One example of GPP practices is to include envi-ronmental indicators for tenders (Nissinen et al., 2009). Policies onGPP aim to reduce whole life cycle environmental impacts of ser-vices and products throughout their whole life cycle (Tarantiniet al., 2011). Thus, GPP practices need to consider environmentalburdens related to goods production, use as well as treatment ordisposal of used products. This life cycle perspective is not alwayseasy to evaluate in true procurement situations, but some form ofauditing or eco-labeling may be appropriate. Public and govern-ment procurement staff, especially within developing countriesand at the municipal governmental level, typically do not have theresources or expertise to judge the greenness of each product orservice, making the use of various indicators and labels necessary.

The second dimension of GPP practices is green logistics. Similarto green purchasing experiences in leading companies (Niwa,2009), GPP practices can require suppliers to make efforts toreduce environmental impacts in their logistics activities such asusing less energy and resources and more environmentally friendlypackaging and transport. For example, a related GPP logisticspractice is a ‘buy-local’ effort to shorten transportation basedenvironmental impact (Otsuki, 2011).

Supplier monitoring using environmental criteria (GS) isanother important dimension for GPP practices (Bala et al., 2008;Wan and Lu, 2009). Such GPP practices can range from simplychoosing suppliers with ISO 14001 certification to auditing sup-pliers evaluating actual environmental performance recordsincluding fines and penalties (Humphreys et al., 2003; Seuring andMuller, 2008). Moreover, officials may even examine internal en-ergy saving and pollution reduction practices and records todetermine the relative proactivity of supplier environmentalpractices. The use of supplier assessment instruments and ques-tionnaires may also be completed. There may be some overlap withthe other practices in this category, but it can encompass suppliercharacteristics that are not necessarily included in product or lo-gistics dimensions. Alternatively, the process of supplier selectiondoes not necessarily include environmental criteria, even thoughthere might be some purchasing of products and services, and ex-pectations of greener logistics from suppliers.

2.2. Drivers for GPP practices

The literature has identified a number of potential drivers thatwill cause organizations, in general, to adopt various green prac-tices (Wu et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2012, 2011b). These same driverscan also influence individuals within organizations. We arefocusing primarily on extra-organizational drivers. Some of theseexternal major pressures and drivers are now identified.

Regulatory requirements are key motivators for GPP practicesadoption (Davies, 2011). One difference between public and privateprocurement is that public procurement will need to explicitly

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e95 87

consider regulatory requirements and limitations (Lian, 2004).There are multiple examples of such regulations and pressures. Forexample, experiences in the European Union show that the existingregulations support public authorities to develop GPP strategies(Testa et al., 2012). Developed countries such as the UK have takenthe leading role in encouraging GPP practices through legislation(Thomson and Jackson, 2007). China has also enacted laws andregulations related to GPP practices. For example, as early as June29, 2002, the Law on Government Procurement for the People’sRepublic of China was introduced, and eventually enacted onJanuary 1, 2003, has made a general requirement that governmentprocurement be environmentally friendly. Based on this law,provinces and municipalities have also developed regulations andpolicies which have promoted GPP practices in China (Geng andDoberstein, 2008).

Cost of greener products can be a barrier for governments inboth developed (Walker and Brammer, 2009) and developing China(Geng and Doberstein, 2008) countries. Similar to green purchasingby a company (Zsidisin and Sifred, 2001), cost is a big barrier forgreen procurement. However, GPP as an environmental policy en-courages government agents to purchase green products even if thecost is higher than non-green alternatives (Marron, 1997), but thisis not true in many cases where local and governmental ordinancesrequire lowest price bid selection. In response to potential costdifferentials the Chinese central government has incorporatedpreferential economic-based policies relying on subsidies to pro-mote GPP practices (Xie, 2009). For example, in 2009, the centralgovernment provided price subsidies for public offices or organi-zation that purchased green vehicles. These economic subsidies are10% for vehicles with an overall environmental label (assumed to be100% environmentally sound), 5% for those with over 50% eco-labeling parts, and 1% for those with less than 50% eco-labelingparts. For furniture, IT and engineering products, the central gov-ernment included environmental indicators for bids, and thisapproach could also be viewed as a market or economic subsidy,which gives a slight favor to procurement of greener products, allelse being equal.

Pressures from non-governmental stakeholders such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), media and the public canpromote GPP practices. In developed countries, non-governmentalorganizations have played important roles related to monitoringand promoting environmental management within their govern-ments (Vigerstol and Aukema, 2011). In China environmental NGOshave limited but increasing influence (Sarkis et al., 2011). Informa-tion about green procurement has frequently appeared in newspa-pers, magazines and other media in developed countries such asJapan (Kusahara, 1999). The use of media, as a stakeholder, to raiseawareness is helpful for promoting GPP practices. In addition tomedia, public attention and support are important for governmentalenvironmental programs (Ribeiro and Srisuwan, 2005).

Based on the discussions above, we put forward three related,but separate hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a. Government green procurement practices arepositively associated with regulatory drivers.

Hypothesis 1b. Government green procurement practices arepositively associated with rewards and incentive drivers.

Hypothesis 1c. Government green procurement practices arepositively associated with non-governmental stakeholders’ drivers.

2.3. Moderation effects of GPP-related knowledge

Motivators exist to influence the adoption of GPP under certainpressures or drivers. The likelihood of adopting practices will be

dependent on various personal, contextual factors and barriers,even for important regulatory policies. Sometimes these contextualfactors will be enablers in the implementation of certain organi-zational practices, the lack of enablers may lessen adoption.

Understanding detailed regulatory requirements are an impor-tant part of GPP practices and their adoption or implementation(Michelsen and de Boer, 2009). Without a deeper knowledge of theregulation logic and purpose, managers and personnel may viewthem as ‘unnecessary’ bureaucratic red tape that is difficult tocomprehend. Part of building this knowledge is through contextualtraining that describes a broader, clearer picture of why GPP isnecessary. For example, in the UK, government training programstargeting government procurement professionals are used to helpthem understand GPP-related requirements under the EuropeanCommission Law (Thomson and Jackson, 2007). These re-quirements may actually be complex and nuanced and this trainingcan provide clarity to requirements typically written in legalesethat a layperson would find difficult to interpret. Simple and clearinformation to help procurement function employees understandGPP practices has been found to increase willingness to implementGPP practices (Faith-Ell et al., 2006).

Clearly identifying products or materials that would fit withinthe environmentally acceptable (green) domain can help buildknowledge of GPP practices. The State of California in one exampledeveloped a list of recommended product brands. This listing isinformation that helped ease the adoption of GPP practices(Swanson et al., 2005). Alternatively, it has been found (especiallyin China) that lowered environmental knowledge of regulations hasbeen a barrier for government procurement persons to implementGPP practices (Geng and Doberstein, 2008).

Besides alleviating environmental impacts, governments cantake responsibility in diffusing their environmental concerns andpractices to the private sector or individuals through their GPP ef-forts (Brammer and Walker, 2011). Similar to environmental pur-chasing among companies, knowledge acquisition and learning canhelp governmental staff to improve performance through GPPpractices (Carter, 2005; Carter et al., 2000). Thus, this broaderknowledge of government’s role as a diffusion mechanism forgreening supply chains by government personnel can facilitateenvironmental concerns into their procurement practices.

Another consideration is the possibility of innovation diffusionfrom more developed regions of the world to less developed re-gions. It can be argued that China can learn from developedcountries to promote GPP practices (Zhang et al., 2011). This type ofinnovation knowledge diffusion has occurred in a number of waysand topics, especially from a legitimation perspective. For example,international organizations such as the United Nations have tried todiffuse experiences of innovative practices in developed countriesto developing countries such as China through a variety of trainingprograms (Facon et al., 2008). At the same time, China also jointlydeveloped training programswith developed countries for capacitybuilding, sending out government employees and other citizensabroad (Kreutzer et al., 2006) or inviting international experts totrain domestic citizens (Edwards and Roelofs, 2006). Similartraining programs among Chinese officials have been implementedfor GPP practices. Thus, government agents’ knowledge of experi-ences in developed countries can help Chinese governmentagencies and individuals to promote GPP practices more effectivelyand efficiently.

With improved knowledge including knowledge of GPP relateddetailed regulatory requirements, individual responsibilities aswell as regulations and policies observed from developed coun-tries, we believe individual government representatives will tendto be more proactive in implementing GPP practices when facedwith external pressures.

Table 1Rotated component matrixa on green public procurement practices.

Survey items Component

1 2 3

Consider water savings in product use whenpurchasing products

.815 .282 .126

Consider primary energy sources (coal, oil,natural gas) saving in product use whenpurchasing products

.762 .272 .236

Consider electricity water saving in productuse when purchasing products

.818 .205 .191

Consider waste production in product usewhen purchasing products

.788 .284 .235

Include environmental indicators in bidevaluation

.684 .227 .372

Consider product workable life whenpurchasing products

.782 .165 .268

Consider material consumption in productionof product when purchasing products

.624 .229 .091

Consider material environmental aspects(recoverable, toxic-free and low chemicalcontent) of products when purchasingproducts

.678 .343 .326

Consider easiness of product disassemblywhen purchasing product

.648 .412 .153

Prefer to buy products with eco-labeling .622 .332 .402Require suppliers to use degradable and

hazardous substance-free packaging.257 .626 .498

Consider packaging produced from recycledmaterial

.295 .617 .476

Consider packaging quantity for products .304 .728 .345Consider environmental impacts of product

packaging.384 .749 .316

Consider transportation distance of products .379 .754 .257Consider product transportation channels .410 .764 .193Consider environmental impacts of product

materials management and logistics.264 .761 .280

Prefer to choose suppliers with ISO 14001certification

.180 .369 .694

Consider internal energy saving practices ofsuppliers

.265 .208 .865

Consider internal pollution reductionpractices of suppliers

.309 .264 .800

Consider environmental performance ofsuppliers

.356 .441 .631

Check bad environmental records or reportsof suppliers

.203 .540 .619

Notes:Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

a Rotation converged in 7 iterations.

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e9588

Using this background, we put forward three hypothesesfocusing on the moderation effect between GPP drivers/motivatorsand GPP practices adoption:

Hypothesis 2a. GPP drivers will have a stronger relationship withgovernment green procurement practices adoption when there is agreater knowledge of related regulations by government agencyprocurement personnel.

Hypothesis 2b. GPP drivers will have a stronger relationship withgovernment green procurement practices adoption when there is agreater knowledge of related responsibilities by governmentagency procurement personnel.

Hypothesis 2c. GPP drivers will have a stronger relationship withgovernment green procurement practices adoption when there is agreater knowledge of GPP experiences in developed countries.

3. Methodology

In this sectionwe provide an overview of the instrument design,operationalization of the constructs, sample characteristics,descriptive statistics and initial construct reliabilities usingexploratory factor analysis.

3.1. Questionnaire development and samples

3.1.1. Questionnaire developmentBased on a literature review of the GPP literature as well as in-

terviews with 10 officials, five from the Shenyang Finance Bureauand five the Shenyang Environmental Protection Bureau, wedeveloped a questionnaire for the GPP practices, pressures andknowledge constructs.

GPP practices need to consider environmental impacts ofproducts and services life cycles (Tarantini et al., 2011). To capturethis construct we include 10 items on resource savings and emis-sion reductions associated with the procured product or servicesfrom a life cycle thinking perspective. Information concerning aproduct materials’ environmental sustainability is incorporated.Environmentally-oriented process items such as disassemblingease of end-of-life products furnished by the supplier are alsoincluded in the instrument.

Similar to private organizations and their supply chains, greenlogistics is an important aspect of GPP practices (Niwa, 2009). Weinclude seven items to measure the green logistics construct. Giventhat GPP is dependent on overall supply chain management(Meehan and Bryde, 2011), the supplier selection process and itscharacteristics are important elements of GPP practices (Bala et al.,2008; Wan and Lu, 2009). We introduce five measurement itemsfor supplier monitoring within the green procurement construct.The 22 specific questionnaire items measuring these constructs areshown in Table 1. For each item, we ask respondents about the levelof implementation for each item (since these are GPP practices). Weutilized a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from “1 ¼ neverconsidered it” to “5 ¼ full implementation”.

Laws and regulations can be effective motivational pressures forGPP practices adoption (Davies, 2011). China has introduced a se-ries of regulations related to GPP (Davies, 2011). To capture thismotivational construct nine questionnaire items to determine thelevel of government procurement personnel pressure from theseregulations are included.

A survey in the UK identified that economic barriers (costs)represent a major barrier for GPP (Walker and Brammer, 2009).Similarly, high cost is one of the key barriers for implementing GPPpractices due to a limited public budget in China as a developingcountry (Geng and Doberstein, 2008). Considering the economic

situation in China, we developed 4 items related to rewards andincentive drivers to help measure this construct. We have includedboth potential cost saving of products’ whole life cycles andfinancial support for GPP practices.

Pressure from non-governmental stakeholders such as NGOs(Vigerstol and Aukema, 2011), the public and media (Ribeiro andSrisuwan, 2005) can motivate GPP practices adoption. Four itemsto measure non-governmental stakeholder influence are intro-duced. Details of the 19 items for the three motivation constructsare summarized in Table 2. We sought to capture each respondent’sperceived level of importance from each motivational driver itemusing a five-point Likert-type scale, with a range from “1 ¼ notimportant at all” to “5 ¼ extremely important”.

In addition to drivers, building necessary knowledge capacitycan aid or further support motivation to adopt GPP practices(Michelsen and de Boer, 2009). One of the big concerns in adoptionof GPP in China is lack of clarity in indicators and regulatory re-quirements (Geng and Doberstein, 2008). For the level of knowl-edge of regulations construct, we developed 7 question items,

Table 3Rotated component matrixa on green public procurement-related understanding.

Survey items Component

1 2 3

“Government Procurement Law” stipulates thatgovernments should prefer procurement ofenvironmental products

.777 .235 �.041

“Circular Economy Promotion Law of P.R. of China”stipulates that governments should take a leadingrole to use environmental products and save officesupply consumption

.773 .170 .172

“Energy Saving Law of P.R. of China” stipulates thatpublic organizations should take a lead role inusing energy-saving products, equipment andimprove energy use efficiency

.820 .046 .235

“Opinions on Energy Saving Products for GovernmentProcurement” explicitly puts forward thatgovernments should prefer to procure listed energysaving products

.814 .128 .301

“Implementation Opinions on Environmental LabelingProducts for Government Procurement” stipulatesall governments and public institutions shouldprefer environmentally labeled products

.692 .403 .214

“Determination on Practicing Scientific Outlook onDevelopment and Strengthening EnvironmentalProtection” by the State Council requires that allgovernmental departments implement greenprocurement practices

.760 .221 .321

12th five-year (2011e2015) circular economy planby the Liaoning provincial government requiresall governmental offices to implement greenprocurement

.779 .142 .195

Governments should provide price subsidies forgreen products development and production

.224 .782 .389

Governments should provide price subsidies forconsumers to buy green products

.165 .824 .321

Governments should provide financial subsidies forgreen products development and production

.288 .800 .315

Governments should provide some tax relief forsuppliers producing green products for greenpublic procurement

.175 .845 .183

Developed countries enacted green publicprocurement laws

.162 .415 .732

Developed countries developed and publicizedguidelines and brochures for green publicprocurement

.228 .301 .825

Developed countries establishing specialinstitutions to implement green procurement

.245 .218 .848

Developed countries established thoroughevaluation and monitoring mechanisms forgreen procurement

.309 .326 .752

Notes:Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

a Rotation converged in 5 iterations.

Table 2Rotated component matrixa on pressures/drivers for green public procurementpractices.

Survey items Component

1 2 3

Related stipulations in “Government ProcurementLaw of P.R. of China”

.801 .201 .314

Related stipulations in “Circular Economy PromotionLaw of P.R. of China”

.811 .226 .252

Related stipulations in “Energy Saving Law of P.R.of China”

.802 .253 .322

Related stipulations in “Opinions on Energy SavingProducts for Government Procurement”

.375 .177 �.145

Requirements in “Notice of Institution on Establishmentof Government Mandatory Procurement for EnergySaving Products” by state council

.819 .249 .235

Requirements in the 12th five-year (2011e2015)circular economy plan by the Liaoning provincialgovernment

.857 .247 .170

Requirements in “Implementation Opinions for FurtherStandardize Government Tendering and BiddingActivities” by both the Liaoning provincial andShenyang municipal governments

.832 .271 .240

Requirements for establishing a national benchmarkingenvironmental city for Shenyang

.802 .318 .253

Influence from implementation of “ShenyangEnvironmental Products Procurement Certificates”

.777 .285 .327

Lower product life cycle costs .251 .766 .322Honors and awards for GPP benchmarking departments

and individuals.232 .834 .193

Financial support for GPP benchmarking departments .308 .826 .164Price subsidies for green products on the list .281 .806 .145Influence by non-governmental environmental

organizations (internationally and domestically).399 .228 .713

Attention to GPP practices by the media .363 .258 .783Attention to GPP practices by the public .111 .253 .894Green purchasing practices by leading companies .224 .360 .801

Notes:Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.

a Rotation converged in 5 iterations.

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e95 89

specifically asking the degree of respondents’ knowledge of theregulations.

Governments can play a large role in promoting environmentalpractices by product producers, especially for small and medium-sized producers (Walker and Preuss, 2008). Thus, four questionsconcerning regulatory subsidies and tax incentives for greenproduct development, production and consumption areintroduced.

China has developed training programs to learn about emergentinnovative green practices from developed countries (Kreutzeret al., 2006; Edwards and Roelofs, 2006). China has also sentgovernmental officials abroad to gain knowledge. Another programinvited international experts to provide information on GPP-relatedlaws and measures in developed countries to government officials.Thus, we introduced four questions about knowledge of GPPrelated laws and measures in developed countries. Details for the15 total question items about GPP knowledge are shown in Table 3.We use a five-point respondent scale for each question, that is,“1 ¼ never heard about it” to “5 ¼ very familiar”.

3.1.2. SamplesOur study targets government officials at the municipal

governmental level. We chose Shenyang, China, the municipalcapital of Liaoning Province for data collection. Shenyang waschosen for several reasons. First, Shenyang is one of the mostimportant industrial cities in China, containing diversified heavyindustrial sectors. Located in the central part of Liaoning provincein northeast China, Shenyang is the largest city in northeast China

and has a total population of over eight million people. Shenyangserves as the regional political and economic center in northeastChina and has a great impact on many neighboring cities andprovincial operations.

Second, Shenyang was selected by the central government ofChina as the only national environmental construction model cityin April, 2009. In order to support its implementation, the Ministryof Environmental Protection of China (MEP) signed an overallagreement with the Ministry of Environment of Japan (MOE) inJune 2009 to support a Shenyang-Kawasaki (Shenyang’s sister cityin Japan) circular economy collaboration so that advanced envi-ronmental protection measures and technologies can be trans-ferred to Shenyang, including GPP practices. This characteristic ofShenyangmakes green procurement by its government agencies aneven more important practice than a typical Chinese municipalitydue to its ‘ecological’ visibility. In addition, the Ministry of Science

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e9590

and Technology (MOST) of China selected three urban districts ofShenyang (Tiexi, Heping and Shenbei) as national sustainabledevelopment demonstration areas in 2009 and 2010,respectively.These programs provided substantial opportunities for municipaldistrict government officials to learn best environmental practicesfrom other regions of China and the world.

Given this situation and attention, two urban districts (Hepingand Shenbei) in Shenyang were selected as the study areas. To easedata acquisition, the research team and the two district govern-ments established a close relationship so that the respondents canbetter understand the purpose and targets of this investigation.Similar to a city government, a district government is composed ofvarious administrative bureaus, such as a finance bureau and anenvironmental protection bureau. Each district is represented by30e35 bureaus.

In order to facilitate survey dissemination and collection, thescience and technology bureaus within the Heping and Shenbeidistrict governments were assigned to be in charge of this project.With their endorsement and support the research team obtaineddata and information from these two districts. There was noobserved evidence that the leadership in the investigated unitsmade any effort to affect the outcomes of this investigation. Allparticipants were informed that all data collected were solely foracademic purposes and would remain strictly confidential. Thismeasure helped to guarantee a more open and unbiased result.Government officials were quite aware of the importance of thesefindings for programmatic advancement related to greeninggovernmental practices.

In order to receive more holistic insights from all the bureaus,we sought to have three questionnaires from each administrativebureau within these two districts. Both districts have 35 adminis-trative bureaus, thus a total of 210 officials was sought. The scienceand technology bureaus in both districts sent out and collected thequestionnaires. Prior to the surveys, a brief session and severalformal workshops were hosted by the research team so that thesurveys could probe respondents for greater clarity in answers andconsistency in relation to the objectives of the questions. In the end,193 officials returned the questionnaires, providing an overallresponse rate of 87.7%.

To appreciate the value of this investigation, one needs to un-derstand the general difficulties of investigating government offi-cials in China. The government and its personnel are veryapprehensive about going on the record for almost any type ofspecific practice question. There is a substantial concern that resultsmay be used as a basis for criticizing Chinese government practices.This situation indicates that successfully conducting these surveyswithout the endorsement, support, and collaboration of the gov-ernment units concerned is very improbable. Consequently, suchinvestigations represent a rare opportunity for examining officials’attitudes to GPP (or any practice) within China. The results can helpidentify the key barriers for the implementation of GPP. In addition,respondents were promised anonymity, and thus responses havebeen pooled to further provide respondent confidentiality.

3.2. Factor analysis

As one of the first studies on GPP practices from an individualperspective, we develop dimensions and items based on both aliterature review of the public procurement literature and officials’opinions. Given the novelty of this work, exploratory factor analysis(EFA) is used to identify the theoretical dimensions (factors) of theGPP practices, pressures/drivers, and knowledge constructs. Themaximum likelihood method with varimax rotation was used toextract the factors. Both the scree test and initial eigenvalue test(eigenvalues > 1) suggested three meaningful factors each to

characterize GPP practices, pressures/drivers and knowledge. Thethree GPP practices factors explain 71.5% of the inherent variation,while the three factors for causing pressures/drivers and GPP-related knowledge explain 75.5% and 75.1% of the variation,respectively. According to the items within each factor, we label thethree GPP practices factors, green products and service preference(GP), green logistics (GL) and green supplier monitoring (GS); thethree drivers/pressures motivation factors are labeled regulatory,rewards & incentive, and non-governmental stakeholder; and thethree knowledge factors are labeled knowledge on regulations,responsibilities and experiences in developed countries.

The results of a reliability test and an item-total correlationanalysis show that the derived factors are reliable. The reliabilitycoefficient alpha values of the three factors for GPP practices are .94for GP, .91 for GL, and .95 for GS, exceeding the benchmark value of.70 for exploratory research (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Allitem-total correlation coefficients are also high, ranging from .61 to.81 for GP, from .68 to .82 for GL, and from .74 to .87 for GS.

The reliability coefficient alpha values of the three drivers/pressures motivation factors from regulations, rewards & incentiveand non-governmental stakeholders have alpha values of .97, .92and .93, respectively. The item-total correlation coefficients rangefrom .85 to .89, from .74 to .83, and from .77 to .83, respectively.Alpha values for knowledge of regulations, responsibilities andexperiences in developed countries are .92, .92 and .91, respec-tively. The item-total correlation coefficients range from .68 to .82for knowledge of regulations, from .76 to .83 for knowledge of re-sponsibilities, and from .74 to .82 for knowledge of experiences indeveloped countries, respectively.

4. Findings and discussions

4.1. General descriptive statistical results

General descriptive statistical results are summarized in Table 4.Mean values for the three GPP practices factors are relatively low,they are, 3.25 for GP, 3.06 for GL and 3.15 for GS, respectively. Theseresults show that most officials are at the early planning stages forimplementing GPP practices.

GPP motivational drivers are perceived as generally strong. Theregulatory drivers factor has the highest mean value of 4.16, whichmeans that officials on average feel significant pressure from GPP-related regulations. Rewards and incentive drivers have the secondhighest mean value of 4.00, which is consistent with a previousstudy that identified cost as a key barrier for GPP practices in China(Geng and Doberstein, 2008). The factor of non-governmentalstakeholder drivers has a relatively lower mean value of 3.81.These results may be due to low stakeholder power from NGOs,media and the public for environmental protection in China (Tanget al., 2010).

GPP knowledge was found to be very low. The three factors havemean values between 2.24 and 2.89. These results are evidence thatChinese officials have only heard about GPP related regulations,responsibilities and experiences in developed countries but havefew details.

These results are consistent with comments made by officialstaff in some personal, informal interviews. These staff indicatedthat they have sought to implement GPP practices mainly inresponse to increasing governmental and regulatory pressure.China has three laws (a Government Procurement Law, the CircularEconomy Promotion Law, and the Energy Saving Law) which stip-ulate GPP related requirements. The State Council, Ministry ofFinance, Ministry of Environmental Protection and NationalDevelopment and Reform Commission have each developedagency level GPP requirements based on the three laws. In

Table 4Descriptive statistics of green public procurement practices, drivers and knowledge.

Factors N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. deviation

GPP practices Green products and service preference 187 1.00 5.00 3.25 .88Green logistics 191 1.00 5.00 3.06 .94Green supplier monitoring 189 1.00 5.00 3.15 .94

GPP drivers Regulatory driver 189 1.00 5.00 4.16 .82Rewards and incentive driver 191 1.33 5.00 4.00 .78Non-governmental stakeholder driver 190 1.00 5.00 3.81 .85

GPP-related knowledge Knowledge of regulations 190 1.00 5.00 2.89 .86Knowledge of responsibilities 191 1.00 5.00 2.49 .97Knowledge of experiences in developed countries 190 1.00 5.00 2.24 .90

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e95 91

compliance with these national level regulations, each provinceand municipality has also developed their own regulations andpolicies to promote GPP practices. However, these lower levelgovernmental staff typically lack of knowledge and clear guidelineson how to implement GPP practices.

4.2. Results of moderation effects

To test the moderating effect of GPP-related knowledge on theGPP drivers-practices relationship, we followed the proceduresdeveloped by methodologists (Jaccard et al., 1990) and which wereused in related research (Zhu and Sarkis, 2007). We analyzed themoderating effect in three steps (see in Tables 5e7). First, weentered the three GPP drivers factors as the first block. Second, weentered one moderator e one factor of GPP-related knowledge as ablock, for example, knowledge of regulations in Table 5. Finally, weentered three interaction terms of GPP drivers and knowledge asthe last block. We can conclude a moderating effect exists byevaluating the results in Step 3, either individually with significantvalues of betas, or collectively with a significant change in the Fvalue (Dean and Snell, 1991).

To mitigate potential issues of multicollinearity within themoderation effect test, we employed a “centering” technique to getdeviation scores for each predictor factor and for three moderatingfactors (Jaccard et al., 1990; Zhu and Sarkis, 2007; Zhu et al., 2011a).The variance inflation factors (VIF), with values close to 1.00, arewithin an acceptable range for our regression analyses.

4.3. Results discussion on hypotheses

4.3.1. Discussions on direct effects between GPP drivers andpractices

Using Tables 5e7, we can observe that regulatory drivers havesignificant positive betas for each of the three GPP practices. These

Table 5Moderation effects for knowledge of regulations on relationships between green public

Dependent factors (Green public pro

Green products and servicepreference

Step 1 Step2 Step3

Regulatory drivers (RD) .245* .280*** .428***Rewards and incentive drivers (RID) .040 �.001 �.099Non-governmental stakeholder drivers (NSD) .112 .099 .092Knowledge of regulations (KREG) .486*** .491***RD*KREG �.218**RID*KREG .170*NSD*KREG �.185*

F for the step 8.43*** 63.81*** 7.93***F for the regression 8.43*** 24.56*** 19.10***Adjusted R2 .111 .346 .416

results strongly support Hypothesis 1a. That is, regulations areimportant for helping to motivate and promote GPP practices(Wedin, 2009). The Chinese government has paid special attentionto incorporating environmental considerations into governmentprocurement practices in response to increasing environmentalpressures, which is evidenced by enactment of the Law on Gov-ernment Procurement on January 1, 2003. For instance, formerstate environmental protection administration (SEPA, now reor-ganized as the Ministry of Environmental Protection) releasedenvironmental labeling standards in 56 industrial sectors so thatprocurement agencies can identify and seek green choices. Anotherexample is a joint regulation released by the Ministry of Financeand the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC, aministry level agency) in 2004 requiring all governmental agenciesto make energy-saving products a priority in their procurementlists. They requested that all the governmental agencies, includingnational, provincial, and local levels, to implement GPP beginningin 2005 (Geng and Doberstein, 2008). International policies such asthe Governmental Purchasing Agreement encourage but do notrequire GPP practices while many of these policies are part ofcurrent Chinese policies which are made compulsory (Qiao andWang, 2011). Our statistical results support that these Chineseregulations have exerted pressures on governmental officials toadopt GPP practices.

Rewards and incentive drivers, see Tables 5e7, show no signif-icant results with two minor exceptions in the three methodolog-ical steps. These weak results do not substantially supportHypothesis 1b. The only two significant exceptions in this directrelationship between rewards & incentive drivers and adoption ofGPP practices are for significantly negative beta scores (�.203and �.178) for the third step for GS practices in Tables 5 and 7.Greater financial support and incentives do not relate to greater GPor GL practices adoption. In fact, these greater incentives may causesome government officials to be even more reluctant to integrate

procurement drivers and practices.

curement practices)

Green logistics Green supplier monitoring

Step 1 Step2 Step3 Step 1 Step2 Step3

.235* .263** .367*** .270** .307*** .413***

.009 �.023 �.078 �.089 �.128 �.203*

.233* .225** .215* .242* .233** .238**.329*** .308*** .366*** .365***

�.142 �.199*.259*** .167*

�.138 �.089

13.31*** 27.00*** 4.67*** 11.56*** 33.43*** 3.72*13.31*** 18.19*** 13.03*** 11.56*** 18.60*** 12.71***

.169 .274 .316 .149 .280 .312

Table 6Moderation effects for knowledge of responsibilities on relationships between green public procurement drivers and practices.

Dependent factors (Green public procurement practices)

Green products and servicepreference

Green logistics Green supplier monitoring

Step 1 Step2 Step3 Step 1 Step2 Step3 Step 1 Step2 Step3

Regulatory drivers (RD) .250* .286** .299** .240* .277** .288*** .274** .310*** .326***Rewards and incentive drivers (RID) .035 �.011 .009 .003 �.045 �.030 �.092 �.135 �.129Non-governmental stakeholder drivers (NSD) .114 .103 .104 .235* .231** .200* .245** .241** .195*Knowledge of responsibilities (KRES) .296*** .247*** .327*** .305*** .281*** .273***RD*KRES �.040 �.121 �.207*RID*KRES .207* .155 .137NSD*KES �.001 �.051 �.031

F for the step 8.71*** 19.28*** 2.31 13.64*** 26.70*** 1.18 11.98*** 18.39*** 2.12F for the regression 8.71*** 12.03*** 8.01*** 13.64*** 18.36*** 11.03*** 11.98*** 14.45*** 9.32***Adjusted R2 .114 .197 .214 .171 .274 .276 .153 .227 .241

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e9592

environmental concerns into their supplier monitoring for greenprocurement practices. The competition for these financial andreward incentives may be causing a perverse practice of notbenchmarking and less careful monitoring so that greater in-centives based on anecdotal information or perceived informationis utilized. That is, if there are greater rewards and incentives inplace for GPP, then officials may be less likely to monitor so that thebest can be assumed. If these officials monitor their suppliersclosely they might find greater discrepancies in performance(things that went wrong) and be less likely to receive awards. Thisunexpected relationship is an issue worthy of additionalinvestigation.

For the non-governmental stakeholder drivers factor, the resultsare shown in Tables 5e7. No significant betas for relationships withGP exist, Hypothesis 1c is not supported for this specific GPPpractice and its relationship to non-governmental drivers. How-ever, the GL and GS practices factors are positively and significantlyrelated to the non-governmental stakeholder pressure for all threesteps in Tables 5 and 6 as well as for Step 1 in Table 7. This resultgenerally supports Hypothesis 1c for these two GPP practices.These results indicate that non-governmental stakeholder driversare not associated with GP practices and are associated with GL andGS practices. These situations may result from the fact that the GPpractices are not regularly encountered or influenced by non-governmental stakeholders. There may be greater awareness ofboth GL and GS practices by non-governmental stakeholders, withgreater opportunities for involvement in these practices and theinformation sharing activities that are more evident. For example,there are greater benefits associated with benchmarking and

Table 7Moderation effects for knowledge of experienced in developed countries on relationship

Dependent factors (Green

Green products and servipreference

Step 1 Step2 St

Regulatory drivers (RD) .246* .327*** .Rewards and incentive drivers (RID) .045 .012 �.Non-governmental stakeholder drivers (NSD) .113 .051 .Knowledge of experiences in developed countries (KEDC) .302*** .RD*KEDC .RID*KEDC .NSD*KEDC �.

F for the step 8.90*** 19.49*** 3.F for the regression 8.90*** 12.24*** 8.Adjusted R2 .116 .200 .

requirements for ISO 14001 certification. Organizations can providegreater benefits and having these additional improvement effortsmay influence how GPP is perceived if organizations make truechanges.

4.3.2. Discussions on moderation effects by knowledge ofregulations

Table 5 shows the moderation effect of the knowledge of reg-ulations factor on the relationship between GPP drivers and prac-tices. All three F statistics change values (F-value for the step) forthe third steps are significant, and thus moderation effects of reg-ulatory knowledge exist for GPP drivers and all three types of GPPpractices. H2a is supported.

A closer examination shows six significant betas for Step 3.Three significantly positive betas are related to rewards and in-centives drivers. Given greater knowledge of regulations, rewardsand incentives drivers tend to have a greater, more influential,relationship with adoption of GPP practices. Thus, if government isto use rewards and incentives, which may be part of the policy it-self, greater knowledge and awareness, e.g. through publicitycampaigns can greatly increase the effectiveness of these rewardsand incentives mechanisms (Xie, 2009), affecting adoption of allthree types of GPP practices.

Unexpectedly two significantly negative betas exist for theinteraction terms related to both regulatory and non-governmentalstakeholder drivers with GP. These results indicate that govern-ment officials who experience GPP-related regulatory and stake-holder pressures are more reluctant to implement GP practices ifthey have greater knowledge of GPP regulations. Interestingly,

s between green public procurement drivers and practices.

public procurement practices)

ce Green logistics Green supplier monitoring

ep3 Step 1 Step2 Step3 Step 1 Step2 Step3

380*** .232* .330*** .387*** .275** .388*** .448***006 .011 �.033 �.057 �.086 �.137 �.178*035 .235* .163 .127 .241* .159 .139270*** .349*** .328*** .397*** .371***026 �.064 �.137243** .177* .137098 �.117 �.047

17* 13.53*** 29.45*** 2.07 12.05*** 38.8*** 2.1061*** 13.53*** 11.99*** 12.00*** 12.05*** 20.66*** 12.92***228 .170 .284 .296 .154 .302 .314

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e95 93

these results could come from the voluntary nature of GPP regu-lations in China. We note that most of the GPP-related regulationssuch as the “Circular Economy Promotion Law” are voluntary ratherthan mandatory (Geng et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2011b), and also haveloopholes (Geng and Doberstein, 2008). Thus, after officials gainknowledge of details concerning these regulations, they realize thatthere may be limited, if any, punishment for non-green procure-ment practices. Thus, ignorance of the law may actually be bene-ficial to GPP practices implementation. An alternative explanationfor these negative moderation results is that many of the practicesin GP are not explicitly outlined in the regulations (even thevoluntary ones). If these practices are not directly stated, and theofficials realize it, they will give less attention to the practices.These are our current interpretations, careful and additional ex-amination is required. Whether these environment and regulatoryexplanations are valid is an important future research direction forteasing out potential reasons for this unexpected moderationrelationship. Additional interviews with officials on these issuescan be further pursued in more detailed case studies.

Another significantly negative beta exists for the relationshipbetween regulatory drivers and GS practices. Compared to othertwo GPP practices, GS is typically a more intensive effort by theofficials. Government officials require greater knowledge and havemonitoring systems in place. Checking and monitoring suppliers’environmental records or completing formal environmental eval-uations requires this additional effort. With limited non-governmental stakeholder pressure and little special knowledgeon environmental issues, officials will not seriously integrateenvironmental issues into their supplier selection after they realizethat most GPP related regulations are voluntary and no clear andserious punishments exist.

4.3.3. Discussions on moderation effects about knowledge ofresponsibilities

Table 6 shows moderation effects of responsibilities. All three Fvalue changes for Step 3 are not significant. Thus, Hypothesis 2b isgenerally not supported. Further evaluation does identify twoweakly significant beta values. One beta value is positive for themoderation effect for knowledge of responsibilities on the rela-tionship between rewards & incentive drivers and GP practices. Theother beta value is a negative moderation effect for the relationshipbetween regulatory drivers and GS practices.

Utilizing the moderation results from the significant interactionterms’ beta values we can make two tentative observations. Topromote GP practices effectively and achieve sustainable develop-ment, governments should consider broader incentives and makethem explicit part of the responsibilities of the officials (and makethese officials aware of those responsibilities). Thus, with moreknowledge on their responsibilities to diffuse environmental con-cerns to producers and individual consumers (Brammer andWalker, 2011; Walker and Preuss, 2008), government officialswould more proactively implement GP practices.

Although surprising still, with more knowledge of re-sponsibilities regulatory drivers cause lessened GS practicesadoption. Similar to the previous negative relationship analysis, itmay be that the regulations do not explicitly spell out the re-sponsibilities that government officials and agencies do notmonitor suppliers closely. As a result, governments’ efforts on greensupplier monitoring may be reduced.

4.3.4. Discussions on moderation effects about knowledge ofexperiences in developed countries

Table 7 shows the moderation effects of officials’ knowledgeabout developed countries’ practices. Only one F for Step 3 for theGP practice is significant, which partly supports Hypothesis 2c.

A further check shows that two positively significant betas exist,and both relate to rewards and incentive drivers for GP and GLpractices.

Providing greater knowledge by building officials’ experiencesin developed countries, governments can further support GP andGL practices adoption. For example helping to achieve environ-mental goals such as for the Kyoto targets and diffusing innovativeenvironmental technologies knowledge can greatly enhance theconsciousness of government officials (van Asselt et al., 2006).Developed countries balance economic cost and environmentalperformance for their GPP programs. With more knowledge aboutGPP goals in developed countries, Chinese government officialswho consider environmental impacts beyond their procurementcosts and understand the rewards and incentives system, may bemore likely to actively implement GP and GL practices.

5. Conclusions and future research

5.1. Conclusions

As the largest developing country, China has made significanteffort through regulatory policies to promote GPP practices (Gengand Doberstein, 2008). GPP efforts can also cause performanceimprovements (McCrudden, 2004). We arrived at a number ofobservations and conclusions that can help drive policy andimprove adoption of GPP practices. Similar to developed countries,costs due to limited budgets are still key barriers, and thus financialsupport and economic incentives for GPP practices is currentlyrequired. Non-governmental stakeholders in China have limitedbut increasing influence on GPP practices. Regulatory, reward andincentive systems, and stakeholder pressures are each related toChinese officials’ implementation of GPP practices.

The first issue for GPP practices in China is related to regulations’ambiguity and lack of knowledge of knowledge of these regulationsby government officials and employees. According to experiencesin developed countries, both regulatory policy (Arrowsmith, 2004;Trepte, 2007) and clear GPP guidelines (Arrowsmith, 2008) areneeded to promote GPP practices. Interestingly, with moreknowledge of detailed regulations, Chinese government officialstend to be more reluctant to implement green products and servicepreference practices. These outcomes may result from the situationthat most GPP related laws in China are promotion-oriented (in-centives and bonus based) rather than mandatory, and most reg-ulations are voluntary (Zhu et al., 2011b). In addition, there mightbe ambiguity in the actual regulatory policies on what is viewed asacceptable practices and who might be responsible for thesepractices. Thus, it is crucial for China to develop and enact clearerand stricter regulations which should clarify responsibilities fordifferent stakeholders. Moreover, related penalties for differentsituations could be viewed as necessary making these regulatorypolicies more mandatory and less voluntary. The incentives andreward systems in place right now may actually have a negativerelationship in the pressures and adoption of some specific prac-tices such as supplier monitoring. These unintended consequencesneed to be carefully evaluated and future research, case studieswith detailed interviews may be necessary to understand the nu-ances of the reasons for some contradictory results are occurring.

Chinese officials may still have vague and ambiguous perspec-tives on their responsibilities. Even in developed countries, officialsusually hesitate to take risk to implement GPP practices (Carlssonand Waara, 2006). GPP practices not only require suppliers to begreen, there is also an aim to motivate environmental practicesamong private sectors and individual consumers (Ho et al., 2010).Learning experiences in developed countries (Kunzlik, 2003), Chi-nese governments can provide financial support such as subsidies

Q. Zhu et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 126 (2013) 85e9594

and tax relief to encourage companies to produce greener productsthrough technology innovations and eco-design. Only with effortby all stakeholders including governments, companies and indi-vidual consumers, can GPP practices achieve the goal of sustainabledevelopment.

Developed countries have initiated GPP practices earlier thanChina, and thus have more mature regulations and promotionsystems. China can initiate its own effective and efficient GPPrelated programs by learning from experiences in developedcountries. One key aspect for such learning is to consider the wholelife cycle cost of one product. Establishing appropriate regulations,ensuring effective implementation, and providing necessary in-formation such as lists of green products and green manufacturers,are also important to help in greater adoption of these practices inChina.

5.2. Research limitations and future research

Using the developed conceptual model, we examine the re-lationships among GPP motivators (pressure/drivers), relatedknowledge and practices. We identified weaknesses of GPP prac-tices in China and examined moderation effects of related knowl-edge on the relationship between GPP pressure/drivers andpractices. But, research limitations and our results raise additionalquestions that provide fodder for future research. Thus a number ofworthwhile future research directions exist.

Our research limitations include from where and whom wegathered information. Expanding this study to other regions of Chinaand even developed countries will be necessary. Also, may beincluding another perspective (as recommended by a previous study(Murray, 2009)) to explicitly include politicians who developedthese regulations to determine motivation, would be a comple-mentary study worth pursuing. With empirical surveys, even withattempts to minimize respondent bias, there might still be issues ofsocial desirability concerns. Triangulation studies that includedetailed cases, observational field studies, and archival data analysismay beways to further enhance this studyandminimize some of thecommon method biases associated with survey research.

But as noted, research limitations provide avenues for futureresearch. In addition, we have identified other directions for futureresearch. Another future research direction may be performanceevaluation for GPP practices. Governments aim to reduce envi-ronmental impacts of the whole life cycle of one product by GPPpractices but at the same time need to consider cost or procure-ment budgets. Simultaneously governments also want to developbenchmarks of their GPP practices and diffuse their efforts to pri-vate sectors and individual consumers. Lack of evaluation in-dicators is a key barrier for GPP practices in China (Geng andDoberstein, 2008). However, what performance indicators shouldbe adopted for GPP practices is a challenge not only for developingcountries, but also for developed countries with a relatively longhistory of GPP practices.

Our results show some conflicting and surprising results. Forexample, there are a number of unexpected results that show lessadoption when there is greater knowledge of regulations and re-sponsibilities. This increase in knowledge of regulations having anegative effect on the relationships between drivers and practices, isa dilemma that needs to be addressed. The cause of this negativerelationship,whether it is lack of clarityorwhether it is thevoluntarynature of the regulations (or other reasons) needs further evaluationandconsideration.Whether these results are true forother regionsofChina clearly needs further investigation and addresses our limita-tion of only focusing on the Shenyang region of China.

Another future research direction can be investigation of diffu-sion systems for GPP practices. Currently, Chinese government

officials and employees know little about GPP-related regulationsand policies in developed countries. Learning from developedcountries while considering the situation in developing countriessuch as China requires greater investigation. More broadly, how toexpand successful green procurement networks from developedcountries to other regions of the world requires additional study.This global diffusion will require consideration of various cultural,social, and institutional barriers. These considerations will requiresubstantive research. Domestically, in China, further research onhow to develop diffusion systems to promote GPP practices fromleading government departments to lagging ones (internal bench-marking and best practices efforts) as well as to other stakeholderssuch as private companies and individual consumers is needed.This initial study provides a number of interesting future researchdirections. The results can prove useful for both developed anddeveloping countries. If developing countries will be the driver forfuture sustainability efforts worldwide, understanding the rolesand effectiveness of government and government purchasing insustainability and greening efforts is an important and necessarystep. This study helps us to move in that direction of furtherunderstanding.

Acknowledgment

This study was supported by a grant from National Science Fundfor Distinguished Young Scholars (71025002), National Key BasicResearch Program of China (973 Program, 2011CB013406), NaturalScience Foundation of China (71033004, 712111042), ChineseAcademy of Sciences (2008-318), Ministry of Science and Tech-nology (2011BAJ06B01).

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