Influence of Human Resource Capacity on the Implementation of Sustainable Public Procurement in Nyandarua County, Kenya

Sustainable procurement is the pursuit of sustainable development objectives through the purchasing and supply process, and involves balancing environmental, social and economic objectives. Research shows that sustainable procurement offers great advantages; it can promote production efficiency for suppliers, help employees to improve labor relations and save costs. However, despite government encouragement and support, the implementation of sustainable procurement in counties in Kenya has not achieved the expected results. The purpose of this study therefore was to analyze the influence of human resource capacity on the implementation of sustainable public procurement in Nyandarua County, Kenya. The study was anchored on the Resource Dependence Theory. The study employed a survey design since it permits gathering of data from the respondents in natural settings. The target population for this study comprised 50 procurement staff in the 10 county ministries in Nyandarua County, Kenya. Since the target population of 50 procurement staff was fairly small, the study undertook a census study. The study purposively targeted procurement staff in each of the county ministries. The study used a self-administered questionnaire with closed-ended questions. Primary data was sourced from the responses the participants provided during the survey. The questionnaire was piloted in Nakuru County, Kenya to evaluate its validity and reliability of the instrument. The data collected from the questionnaires was analyzed using both descriptive (means and standard deviations) and inferential statistics (correlation and regression) with the aid of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results of the survey were presented in tables. The study established that there was a moderate and positive correlation between human resource capacity [r = 0.434**, p = .004] and implementation of sustainable public procurement. The fitted model R square of 0.189 implied that human resource capacity explained 18.9% of implementation of sustainable public procurement. The study therefore recommends that counties should develop HR capacity in order to enhance implementation of sustainable public procurement