The co-creation of social value between social enterprises and private firms in the construction industry

The emerging concept of social procurement, underpinned by principles of New Public Governance, is driving new forms of collaboration and partnerships between the private, public and social enterprise sectors in the construction industry. This has led to calls for more research around the new forms of cross sector collaboration arising from the merging of institutional logics between these previously separated sectors.  There is currently little understanding of how and why social enterprises and private for-profit firms collaborate in meeting new public sector social procurement requirements and of what institutional and organisational factors shape these practices. Drawing on insights from both management and policy studies, documentary analysis and in-depth interviews with senior leaders of three construction organisations in the UK and Australia, the drivers and consequences of cross-sector collaborations in response to social procurement and the organisational and institutional factors that drive them are explored. The results show that the co-production of social value through supply chain relationships in the construction industry is largely driven by commercial concerns. These are, in turn, influenced by institutional factors, including both industry and political institutional imperatives. It is concluded that there are significant differences in experience and opportunity for collaboration based on supply chain position and organisational scale and that these have notable effects on the co-creation of social value and the legitimacy of different social benefit providers in the construction industry.