In Australia, a new feature of public policy is the requirement by governments that large-scale infrastructure projects integrate social procurement practices that alter the traditional focus on balancing price and quality. Social procurement has been gradually developing in practice, but the academic literature has not kept pace. Although past research has identified some of the barriers affecting social procurement implementation in the construction industry, the nature of the barriers impeding its proliferation has not to date been systematically reviewed. This paper undertakes a review of the social procurement literature published from January 2012 to 30 June 2022, with 49 papers chosen under selective criteria. This critical review employs the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” (PRISMA) technique to retrieve secondary data on social procurement from available peer-reviewed academic papers through three databases (Scopus, EBSCOhost, Web of Science). The literature analysis focuses on three themes: (1) barriers; (2) enablers; and (3) strategies to overcome the barriers. The paper finds that social procurement as a field of practice is evolving and expanding, but its role in contributing to social value creation remains an under-theorised concept. Recommendations for practice and future research are identified, including the need to measure the real-world impacts of policy.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) of Indonesian listed firms. Estimations via simultaneous equation models with ordinary least squares (OLS) and two-stage least squares (2SLS) were employed for 84 firms with a total of 924 observations over the period of 2007-2017. The results showed that a lack of CG in monitoring and supervisory mechanisms, as well as a high concentration of managerial ownership, can significantly contribute to low levels of CSR. There are data limitations as a number of firms were omitted due to the application of the CSR criteria utilised in this study. The research has implications for Indonesian listed firms with respect to aligning CSR initiatives to firm objectives. The paper provides recommendations for future research in this area. The paper provides one of the few studies to analyse CG on CSR via a comprehensive measurement of CSR. Further, it adds to the empirical academic literature from a developing country context

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine whether differences in the characteristics, financial knowledge and financial attitudes of a migrant group exert significant influence on the likelihood of their financial literacy level. Design/methodology/approach: A multiple discriminant analysis incorporating post-estimation analyses is employed, where the financial literacy level is used to identify a priori clusters. Findings: The results showed that a significant discriminant function could be estimated to classify the study cohort into three financial literacy groupings. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research to address financial literacy, taking into account differences in characteristics, financial attitudes and financial knowledge of different cohort groups. Research limitations/implications: Although the research targets Vietnamese migrants, no claims can be made regarding the representation of other migrant groups as a whole. The research has implications with respect to programs to improve financial literacy levels of those most at need. This paper provides recommendations for future research in this area. Originality/value: The paper provides one of the few studies of an Australian migrant cohort with respect to financial literacy. The study utilises a multiple discriminant analysis incorporating post-estimation analysis to examine, and compare, the factors that influence a person’s financial literacy level.

Although social procurement is viewed as an important part of social value creation, barriers to its implementation have resulted in a failure to realise the full societal benefits it was designed to achieve. As a key area of activity for government procurement projects, the construction and transportation industries have a big role to play in contributing positively to societal outcomes. While prior studies have identified barriers from specific cohorts, no prior study has approached this from the perspective of the key stakeholders throughout the social procurement ecosystem within the construction and transport industries. To address this gap in social procurement research, interviews and a focus group totalling 42 participants were undertaken. Participants ranged from those implementing policy (government representatives), tendering for contracts (tier one companies) and providing specialised social procurement services (social enterprises), along with key intermediary support bodies. Results indicate that barriers exist throughout the entire social procurement ecosystem and highlight the need to develop an enhanced social procurement ecosystem capable of maximising the societal benefit that arises from social procurement. These findings provide a set of strategies for the key stakeholders in the ecosystem to consider adopting to improve social procurement outcomes.

The United Nations’ Human Development Index remains a widely used and accepted measure of human development. Although it has been revised over the years to address various critiques, a remaining concern is the way the three dimensions are aggregated into the single index. A deterioration in one dimension can be compensated for by an improvement in another. Since compensability is inextricably linked with trade-offs and intensity of preferences, a non-compensatory (i.e., Condorcet) approach to aggregation is employed in this paper. Although non-compensatory approaches have been employed previously, this paper adds to the literature by undertaking an application of the Condorcet approach to the entire HDI. This approach, which does not use intensities of preferences, ensures that the degree of compensability connected with the aggregation model is at the minimum possible level. To achieve this, country level rankings are then compared to those for the 2020 Human Development Index which aggregates dimensions using a geometric mean. The findings demonstrated substantial changes in rank-order between the HDI and Condorcet approach. This outcome provides empirical evidence which demonstrates that the non-compensatory Condorcet approach can mitigate issues of compensation present within the geometric aggregation technique currently employed by the HDI. These findings have potential implications in aiding the identification and employment of potential policy priorities—specifically, the notion that policy should emphasise the development of a country as opposed to economic growth alone.