Procurement has received scholarly attention as a valuable policy tool to reach desired outcomes in society, such as innovation. While interest has grown in analyzing the impact of the ‘substantive’ function of procurement (purchasing of goods and services), procurement is much more than purchases, and most public buyers’ activities are ‘procedural’, as they are aimed at improving the many internal stages of the procurement process. This study explains how procurement can be both a substantive and procedural tool, particularly in terms of innovation. Using the 2010 Innobarometer dataset that consist of 4,063 public organizations from 29 European countries, this study answers how public procurement, as a procedural policy tool, affects the implementation of public sector innovations. We find that procurement activities are positively related to innovation within public organizations. In particular, procurement as R&D for new technologies and services has an important and meaningful effect. We discuss implications for policy tools and public sector innovation literature, and we suggest that policy makers make use of more procedural tools such as procurement to increase innovation within public organizations.

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将公共采购定位为创新的程序工具：实证研究

采购作为一种有价值的政策工具，可以在社会上达到预期的成果，例如创新，已经受到了学术界的关注。虽然人们对分析采购（商品和服务的采购）的“实质性”功能的影响越来越感兴趣，但采购不仅仅是采购，而且大多数公共采购商的活动都是“程序性的”，因为它们旨在改善许多采购过程的内部阶段。本研究解释了采购如何既是实质性工具又是程序工具，特别是在创新方面。本研究使用由来自 29 个欧洲国家的 4,063 个公共组织组成的 2010 年 Innobarometer 数据集，回答了公共采购作为一种程序性政策工具如何影响公共部门创新的实施。我们发现采购活动与公共组织内的创新正相关。特别是，采购作为新技术和服务的研发具有重要而有意义的影响。我们讨论了对政策工具和公共部门创新文献的影响，我们建议政策制定者利用采购等更多程序工具来增加公共组织内的创新。