Improving public purchaser attitudes towards public procurement of innovations

This study investigates the effect of organizational support, perceived usefulness, and perceived availability of support schemes on public purchaser attitudes towards public procurement of innovations (PPI). Through a self-administered questionnaire, data were collected from a sample of public purchasers working in the Norwegian municipalities. The dataset was analysed through partial least squares structural equation modelling. The results show that organizational support is significantly associated with increased perceived usefulness of PPI, which in turn is positively associated with attitudes towards PPI. Contrary to our expectation, perceived availability of PPI support schemes is negatively associated with attitude towards PPI. Indeed, rather than strengthening the effect of public purchasers’ perceived usefulness of PPI on attitude it significantly weakens it. Although the results show that experience with PPI and the presence of a PPI strategy positively affect attitude towards PPI, their effects are not as strong as we expected. Further analysis showed that the most important factor in our model is the perceived usefulness of PPI, followed by organizational support. The study provides several managerial and policy implications. For instance, schemes for supporting PPI should be scaled up along with the dissemination of information about their mode of operation and the associated benefits. Keywords: innovations, public procurement, public purchaser, organizational support, perceived usefulness, support schemes, attitude