Sustainable procurement practices and female entrepreneurs: Insights from a developing country

Sustainable procurement has become a very important aspect of business, with a lot of emphasis on the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of the society in which firms operate. At the same time, female entrepreneurship has attained a very prominent position in various economies, especially those of developing countries, providing a lot of employment to many and contributing significantly to the growth of those countries. However, the contribution of female entrepreneurs to sustainability through their procurement practices has received minimal research especially in the developing country context, leaving us with little or no knowledge at all regarding the sustainable procurement practices of female entrepreneurs in developing economies. This study fills this knowledge gap by qualitatively investigating the dynamics of the adoption of sustainable procurement practices by female entrepreneurs in Ghana. We found that female entrepreneurs in these contexts adopt environment-related sustainable procurement practices, diversity-related sustainable procurement practices, safety-related sustainable procurement practices, and the sustainable procurement practices of purchasing from local and small suppliers. The adoption and implementation of these practices however are not motivated by female entrepreneurs' quest to be sustainable, but their desire to save cost and make profits. Policy implications are also discussed.