Sectoral differences in public procurement maturity: findings from the Finnish public procurement maturity model Open Access

Assessing organisational procurement maturity helps pinpoint how well procurement practices are embedded and where development efforts are most needed. In public procurement, maturity is shaped not only by process quality, digital systems and staff competence, but also by sector-specific constraints such as regulation, accountability and policy goals. Although procurement maturity has been widely discussed (Van Weele et al., 1998; Schiele, 2007), much of this work is rooted in private-sector assumptions and offers limited insight into how maturity varies across public-sector organisational types. Public organisations operate under different mandates and resource conditions, which can lead them to prioritise procurement development in different ways and to institutionalise capabilities at different speeds. Understanding these sectoral differences is therefore central to explaining variation in public procurement maturity and to identifying where improvement efforts can most effectively strengthen performance and public value. Finland provides a particularly informative context for this analysis: decentralised governance and an ambitious national procurement strategy create meaningful variation across central government agencies, municipalities and other public organisations, enabling a systematic comparison of procurement priorities and maturity patterns.

Prior research suggests that public-sector procurement priorities are shaped by organisational archetypes and administrative levels, leading to systematic differences in what organisations emphasise and develop. Centralised versus decentralised governance arrangements, and state-level versus local authorities, tend to differ in how procurement is aligned with strategic objectives, with state organisations more often emphasising innovation, sustainability and transparency while local actors prioritise regional development and support for SMEs (Glas et al., 2017). However, less is known about whether these differences are also reflected in the maturity of procurement capabilities across public-sector when structural procurement processes and agility-oriented areas are considered together. Against this, the study examines sectoral variation in the perceived importance and maturity of key procurement capability areas across governmental, municipal and other public-sector organisations, with particular attention to procurement processes and agility.

To explain why sectors may prioritise and institutionalise procurement capabilities differently, the study draws on Dynamic Capabilities Theory, which conceptualises organisational adaptation through sensing opportunities and threats, seizing them through decisions and investments, and transforming resources and routines over time. (Teece et al., 1997; Qiu et al., 2022). In public procurement, dynamic capabilities have been linked to innovation, adaptability and coordination across internal functions and external stakeholders, making them especially relevant for understanding cross-sector differences in how procurement develops beyond routine compliance. (Grimbert et al., 2024). A maturity perspective complements this lens by offering a structured way to capture how procurement functions evolve from basic, operational routines toward more strategic and integrated practices. (Schiele, 2007; Concha et al., 2012). Classical staged maturity thinking, as reflected in the Capability Maturity Model, provides a basis for comparing current capability levels and identifying systematic improvement trajectories across organisations. (Humphrey and Sweet, 1987). However, existing research has rarely used maturity assessment to compare procurement capability development across different public-sector organisational types, where regulatory demands, accountability structures and policy objectives can shape both priorities and the pace of institutionalisation. (Schiele, 2007; Concha et al., 2012). Addressing this gap, we use the Finnish Public Procurement Maturity Model as a measurement approach to enable sectoral comparison and to identify where perceived priorities outpace realised maturity, thereby generating actionable insights for capability development and policy support. (Juran, 1986).

This study applies the Finnish Public Procurement Maturity Model (PMM) as a measurement framework to assess procurement maturity through organisational self-assessment and to support capability development across public-sector contexts. The PMM builds on established maturity and excellence traditions, drawing on the staged logic of the Capability Maturity Model and the EFQM Excellence Model to capture progression from ad hoc procurement routines toward strategically integrated functions (Humphrey and Sweet, 1987; EFQM, 1999; Reck and Long, 1988). Empirically, the PMM is operationalised through a structured questionnaire that combines Likert-scale ratings with diagnostic items to elicit stakeholder perceptions of key development areas, balancing practical usability with analytical depth (Schiele, 2007; Schweiger, 2014; Tontini et al., 2016). The paper proceeds as follows. Firstly, it outlines the organisational structures of the Finnish public sector to contextualise the comparison. Secondly, it develops the conceptual foundation for assessing procurement maturity. Thirdly, it describes the PMM and its application in the Finnish setting. Fourthly, it reports the empirical results, focusing on sectoral differences in the perceived importance and maturity of procurement capability areas. Finally, it discusses the theoretical and practical implications and concludes with directions for future research and policy development.

The value of the Finnish public sector’s procurements is approximately EUR 47bn annually, or on average 20% of the country’s GDP. Finland has been singled out as a top-performing country in creating a policy framework for public procurement (European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, 2021). During 2020, Finland published its first nationwide Public Procurement Strategy covering eight ambitious target themes for the whole public sector, including governmental, municipal organisations and public owned companies’ similar targets for ecological procurement and innovative procurement. The country is one of the forerunners in setting strategic sustainability and innovation goals for public procurement and developing models and indicators to evaluate public procurement from different perspectives. The Finnish procurement strategy encompasses multiple objectives and has been developed through cooperation among various organisations, including both central government bodies and local authorities. The multiple objectives of the new national procurement strategy provide an interesting and ambitious case for the development of an impact assessment in which Finnish PMM forms one of the official indicators. (Merisalo, Hyytinen, Oksanen, Pihlajamaa and Uyarra, 2024).

The challenge with Finnish Public procurement strategy and its preliminary indicators is, that only figures related to tendering phase have been calculated so far. Procurement processes and lifecycle are challenging to monitor, because the procurement systems do not necessarily communicate with each other. The self-assessment tool supports the automated and real-time collection of data while minimising bureaucratic burden for public organisations.

In recent years, the nationwide strategic focus of public procurement in Finland has shifted more towards gaining public savings and boosting suppliers’ willingness to bid. To better achieve its public procurement goals, Finland is investing in a national procurement database. At this stage, an open question regarding the national procurement database concerns the extent to which data from different phases of the procurement lifecycle is integrated into the national architecture to enable cost savings, sustainability and innovation in ongoing procurement processes (A Strong and Committed Finland, Government Programme Government of Finland, 2023).

Dynamic capabilities – the organisation’s ability to sense, seise and reconfigure its resource base as environments evolve – provide a grand-theory lens for understanding how public procurement adapts and creates value under policy and market uncertainty (Teece et al., 1997; Qiu et al., 2022). Applied to public agencies, this perspective highlights how adaptive orchestration of processes and assets enables innovation while maintaining coherence between internal workflows and external stakeholder engagement (Grimbert et al., 2024). In this view, procurement is not merely transactional; it is a dynamic, outward-looking function that continually interprets signals, mobilises responses and realigns resources to sustain public value in changing conditions (Malacina et al., 2022).

Recent evidence underlines these implications. Karttunen et al. (2024) show that dynamic capabilities in public procurement contribute to value creation by strengthening innovation, supplier market functionality, sustainability and overall effectiveness. Complementing this, Loijas et al. (2024) demonstrate that dyadic capabilities between public buyers and suppliers are pivotal for implementing performance-based procurement, thereby tightening the link between strategy and execution. Building on Karttunen et al.’s (2024) findings of capabilities as integrative forces, this study adopts internal and external dynamic capabilities as a theoretical lens to explicate the procurement function’s transformational potential. Aligning procurement practices with dynamic capability frameworks can unlock substantial public value by systematically enhancing responsiveness and innovation; accordingly, investment in the maturation of procurement functions is not merely process improvement but a strategic imperative for long-term sustainability and public value delivery.

Within this dynamic-capability view, agility emerges as a salient operational manifestation. Although numerous tools exist for assessing structural elements of procurement, theoretical foundations for procurement agility remain comparatively underdeveloped – even as agility is central to coping with unexpected, fast-changing conditions (Goldman et al., 1995; Kidd, 1994). As Hua (2025) emphasises, embedding agile principles – iterative approaches, customer focus and adaptive supplier cooperation – helps public procurement navigate complexity and uncertainty. Agility is further reinforced by collaborative supplier relationships grounded in transparency and responsiveness rather than rigid compliance; such relationships enhance the capacity to meet customer needs and adjust quickly to shifting demands (Narasimhan et al., 2006; Swafford et al., 2006). Taken together, these insights motivate a structured approach to building and staging such capabilities, highlighting the role of maturity models in operationalising and assessing this progression.

Recent research highlights that the maturity of procurement functions is inherently connected to the development of dynamic capabilities, enabling organisations to advance from basic operational routines towards more strategic, integrated practices (Schiele, 2007; Concha et al., 2012). As maturity levels increase, procurement is better positioned to leverage dynamic capabilities for achieving performance outcomes, enhancing cost efficiency and driving value creation (Patrucco et al., 2019; Grimbert et al., 2024). However, reaching higher levels of maturity is not straightforward. While organisations at advanced stages are able to validate and institutionalise their practices, progression toward these levels requires long-term investment, absorptive capacity and the ability to integrate new knowledge into established routines (Schiele, 2007). Thus, capability maturity in procurement reflects not only technical improvements but also the organisational readiness to sustain and embed continuous learning and transformation.

Decision-makers increasingly recognise procurement maturity as a critical determinant of organisational performance, risk management and strategic impact. Research shows that organisations with low maturity rely on minimal, ad hoc, and reactive practices, which limits their ability to plan, coordinate and deliver effective procurement outcomes (Coşkun and Kazan, 2023). More mature procurement functions demonstrate stronger process discipline, proactive strategy implementation and improved operational control, enabling better cost savings and resource allocation (Schiele, 2007). For decision-makers, understanding maturity levels is essential because it helps identify the minimum capability threshold required before advanced methods and tools can produce benefits, thereby preventing overinvestment in practices the organisation is not yet ready to absorb (Schiele, 2007). Maturity dimensions also strengthen alignment between organisational objectives and procurement activities by improving structures, processes and information flows that support both daily operations and long-term performance (Versendaal et al., 2013). Recent evidence further highlights the growing importance of agility-related maturity elements, including digital readiness and e-procurement capabilities, which are essential in volatile environments where supply network responsiveness determines procurement effectiveness (Makudza et al., 2023). Sustainable procurement maturity likewise requires decision-makers to acknowledge and manage contextual complexities, particularly in settings where weak regulatory or socio-economic conditions complicate implementation, thus necessitating incremental capability development (Etse et al., 2023). More broadly, maturity models provide a structured basis for assessing procurement effectiveness, identifying improvement priorities and mitigating risks in complex and high-impact procurement activities such as IT or construction. Through systematic evaluation of these maturity elements, organisations can enhance their ability to manage risks, strengthen accountability and embed continuous improvement across procurement functions.

The conceptualisation of procurement maturity models (PMMs) has evolved to provide structured pathways for assessing and guiding this progression. Reck and Long (1988) introduced the first PMM, laying the groundwork for later frameworks that emphasised the transition from transactional to strategic procurement. Building on this, Keough (1993) identified four critical barriers that organisations must overcome to achieve a truly strategic procurement function: establishing sound operational foundations, securing financial commitment, developing supportive organisational infrastructure and fostering world-class supplier relationships. For the public sector, these challenges are amplified by the dual necessity to comply with procurement law and align with broader policy goals. Traditional emphasis has often been placed on the tendering stage; however, research suggests that greater value lies in shifting attention towards strategic planning and effective contract management throughout the procurement lifecycle (Steinecker, 2008).

The evolution of capability maturity models (CMMs) in procurement can be traced back to efforts to consolidate fragmented frameworks into more comprehensive approaches. Van Weele et al. (1998) synthesised earlier contributions, particularly building on Keough’s (1993) model, to present a unified framework that incorporates organisational structures, strategic focus and industry-specific perspectives. This integrated model not only captures the stages of purchasing development but also addresses organisational choices such as centralisation versus decentralisation and functional versus cross-functional orientations. Its core purpose is to provide a roadmap for organisations seeking to improve procurement systematically by balancing structural arrangements with strategic integration.

The theoretical foundation of CMMs lies in their role as tools for organisational development and change. They aim to ensure that transformations are supported by processes, resources and individual capabilities, thereby minimising the risks associated with change initiatives that lack adequate support (Deming, 1986). Through structured assessment, the models provide a reference point for analysing performance, identifying improvement opportunities and guiding systematic development. Recent contributions extend this logic by emphasising agility as a missing yet vital dimension in many frameworks. Hua (2025) argues that procurement maturity assessments should explicitly account for agility, as it complements structural and strategic elements by enabling responsiveness, innovation and stakeholder alignment. This is particularly critical in public procurement contexts, where uncertainty and complexity demand flexible, adaptive capabilities alongside formalised structures.

The literature also highlights the value of self-assessment as a mechanism for embedding maturity models in practice. Binney (1992) stresses that the effectiveness of such frameworks depends on fostering a shared language and strategic understanding across organisational levels. Empirical observations suggest that maturity models can help employees recognise strengths and weaknesses (Aly, 1997; Black and Crumley, 1997), benchmark against coherent standards (Aly, 1997), and prepare actionable development plans (Conti, 1997; Davis, 1992). They have also been linked to enhanced client commitment (Fountain, 1998), competence development (Davis, 1992) and organisational learning (Teece et al., 1997; Grant, 1991).

Despite these benefits, the measurement of public procurement maturity remains relatively underdeveloped, with only a few national models implemented. Examples include the Dutch MSU + model (Johannsen, 2013) and the Danish National Procurement Agency’s PMM (Møller et al., 2010). The Danish Public Procurement Maturity Model (PMM) and the Dutch MSU + framework both build on the Capability Maturity Model and are influenced by the EFQM Excellence Model. The Danish PMM, developed by SKI, emphasises practical execution – tendering, contract management, organisational setup and change readiness – while the Dutch MSU+, created by NEVI, adopts a broader scope with 14 processes and a ten-level scale, stressing strategic integration, innovation and supplier relations. The Finnish PMM adds value by tailoring the approach to Finland’s decentralised procurement system and national strategy, with a stronger focus on sustainability, innovation, competence development and supplier partnerships, thereby supporting both organisational improvement and system-wide learning. While the Danish model provided early inspiration, the Finnish Procurement Maturity Model (PMM) has evolved into a living framework that is more advanced in scope and operationalisation.

Finnish PMM has been developed in cooperation with procurement developers, Universities, and various cooperation partners. The model was audited by an external quality auditor. The technical implementation of the PMM self-assessment survey and reporting tool was executed by a Finnish start-up. With this model and tool, organisations can assess the current and plan targeted state of procurement and compare evaluations made by various groups of respondents and their differences from the perspectives of procurement areas. The model considers factors associated with the entire life cycle of procurement and the structure and agility of procurement processes. The model was piloted and used in Finnish KEINO academies, where it was essential part of half a year sprint type of development program for public organisations (Berg, Alhola, Peltomaa and Tietari, 2022) implemented during the period 2019–2024. In addition to its application in the KEINO Academy, the PMM has been promoted in the ProcurFinland programme (a national initiative led by the Ministry of Finance and the Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities). This programme aims to improve the effectiveness and societal impact of public procurement across Finland by promoting strategic procurement practices, enhancing procurement competence and facilitating collaboration among public sector entities (Ministry of Finance, 2025).

The Finnish PMM is implemented as structured maturity assessment tool designed to provide a comprehensive view of an organisation’s procurement capability. The tool consists of a unified questionnaire that evaluates key procurement areas across strategic, tactical and operational dimensions, following van Weele’s (2005, 2010) functional categorisation. Through this single assessment instrument, respondents reflect on organisational practices, performance levels and development needs, enabling a consistent and comparable understanding of procurement maturity. The model also incorporates the concept of agility – an essential requirement in today’s dynamic public sector environment – capturing aspects such as proactive behaviour, execution speed, flexibility and the ability to support innovation and sustainability. By integrating structural maturity and agility within one tool, the Finnish PMM provides organisations with a practical and coherent method for diagnosing current capability, identifying improvement priorities and guiding targeted development actions.

The present analysis is based on a total of 1,686 individual responses collected between 2019 and 2023 through a survey which relies on volunteer participation to public procurement self-assessment and development tool provided to public sector agencies. These responses represent 184 distinct public sector organisations in three roles, which were categorised into three sectors: government (e.g. ministries and central government agencies), municipalities (e.g. municipalities and cities) and other public sector entities (e.g. publicly owned companies, universities and social and health-care sector). Data were collected via an open, continuously available self-assessment platform for public-sector organisations without targeted recruitment, so a conventional response rate cannot be calculated. The applied categories follow the municipality–state–other classification because EU procurement law already delineates contracting authorities into three groups – central government, regional/local (municipal) authorities and other bodies governed by public law and their associations – so the typology is grounded in the directive’s institutional structure (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2014). This tripartite legal framing aligns with procurement research that analyses variation across government levels and treats municipalities as a distinct decision-making locus, analytically separable from central government and other public-law entities (Patrucco et al., 2019).

For analysis, individual responses were aggregated at the organisational and role levels to ensure comparability across institutions. This procedure yielded the following sectoral distribution of aggregated organisational levels (n = 184) responses. Respondents were drawn (see Table 1) from state government units (39.9%), municipalities (24.0%) and other public sector organisations (36.1%). Most worked in large organisations with more than 250 employees (70.3%), with 20.9% from medium-sized units (50–250 employees) and 1.1% from small or micro-organisations (<50 employees); organisation size was not reported for 7.7%. In terms of role, 45.7% were procurement specialists, 28.4% were in management and 26.0% were other experts. The distribution of respondent roles did not differ significantly across sectors.

While procurement professionals were the primary respondents, the tool is available to all employees in Finnish public organisations. Survey access and respondent validation were ensured via the official webpage platform, requiring registration and authentication with institutional email credentials, thereby linking each response to the corresponding organisation. The present study is based on the short questionnaire results ( Appendix Figure A1: Structure of the questionnaire), as it has received responses from a broader respondent group. Consequently, these results more accurately reflect the prioritisation and perceptions of staff concerning maturity across different procurement areas, thus providing statistically more reliable findings.

The questionnaire is designed to capture internal stakeholders’ perceptions of critical development areas, offering a structured reflection on current procurement practices and organisational capabilities. A key methodological challenge in maturity assessment lies in determining how to measure the degree of maturity across different dimensions of procurement performance (Schweiger, 2014). The literature presents several approaches. Likert-type scales, which range from strong disagreement to strong agreement, are widely used but may introduce subjectivity because responses depend on the respondent’s knowledge and attitudes. Another option involves predefined scenario-based maturity descriptions for each item (Schiele, 2007), which improve clarity but often result in longer and more demanding questionnaires. According to Tontini et al. (2016), an effective maturity instrument must therefore balance specificity with usability so that it provides adequate diagnostic detail while remaining practical for respondents to complete.

The study builds on the EFQM Excellence Model, a non-prescriptive framework grounded in Total Quality Management principles that emphasises customer orientation and continuous improvement (Porter and Tanner, 1996), and this foundation also underpins the Finnish Public Procurement Maturity Model (PMM). The PMM uses self-assessment as a systematic method for identifying strengths and weaknesses and guiding targeted improvements in procurement performance. Framed as both a diagnostic and developmental exercise, the questionnaire encourages respondents to view procurement as a strategic rather than purely administrative function. Self-assessment is widely defined as a comprehensive and regular evaluation of organisational activities and results (Finn and Porter, 1994; Hillman, 1994) and the EFQM model highlights its value in identifying strengths and development needs (EFQM, 1999). Although such scoring approaches offer useful insights, their subjectivity has been noted (Hughes, 1999; Møller et al., 2010). In line with established practice in procurement maturity research, the Finnish PMM adopts a five-level scale to describe the progression of procurement capability from ad hoc operation to strategic integration (Reck and Long, 1988).

The survey instrument ( Appendix Figure A1) consists of a single structured questionnaire in which respondents assess 11 procurement areas by rating both the importance of each area to the organisation and the organisation’s current maturity. Using a uniform item format and paired importance and maturity judgments is consistent with capability and contingency perspectives that emphasise comparable measurement across roles and the identification of fit and gap patterns between strategic priorities and existing practices (Bals et al., 2018; Patrucco et al., 2019). Importance is measured on a five point Likert type scale from Not at all important (1) to Very important (5), and maturity is assessed on a five level performance scale from Weak (1) to Excellent (5); clearly anchored five point scales are commonly recommended in operations and supply chain research because they provide sufficient discrimination while limiting respondent burden and maintaining reliability in managerial self-assessments (Swafford et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2005).

Given the exploratory purpose of the study and the intention to keep respondent burden low in a practitioner-oriented sample, each discrete procurement activity was operationalised using a targeted single item. Single-item operationalisations are appropriate for concrete and unidimensional constructs and are well suited to early-stage or exploratory research designs (Bergkvist and Rossiter, 2007; Diamantopoulos et al., 2012). Because the analyses rely on ANOVA using observed variables, these direct indicators provide a sufficient basis for mean-level comparisons without necessitating latent measurement models (Kline, 2011). The first set of items covers the Procurement Structure dimensions of the Finnish PMM, namely, Procurement Management, Analysis and Reporting, Current State Analysis, Procurement Planning, Tendering and Preparations, Contract Management and Procure to Pay, reflecting research that procurement performance depends on both macro structural choices and micro process arrangements such as centralisation, formalisation and standardised routines (Bals et al., 2018; Patrucco et al., 2019). The questionnaire then addresses Procurement Agility dimensions, namely Sustainable Procurement, Innovative Procurement, Procurement Skills and Cooperation with Suppliers, aligning with prior findings that agility and sustainability in supply networks rely on dynamic capabilities, cross-functional IT and process integration and adaptive supplier collaboration (Swafford et al., 2006; Zhu et al., 2005). For each area, respondents answer two consistent questions, how well does this area function in your organisation and how important is this area to your organisation, via drop down options aligned with the scales, enabling systematic gap analysis where high importance and low maturity indicate development needs and high importance and high maturity indicate strengths, and supporting robust comparisons across procurement roles including management, procurement specialists and other experts (Bals et al., 2018; Patrucco et al., 2019).

The Finnish PMM provides a resource-efficient instrument for advancing procurement capability at both organisational and national levels. Its application across government, municipal and other public sector entities enables systematic comparison of procurement maturity, thereby generating insights into sectoral similarities and differences. To examine these variations, we used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to test for divergence in stakeholder perceptions across sectors. In the first stage of analysis, the focus is placed on how different areas of procurement – such as innovative procurement and contract management – are valued in distinct organisational contexts. By comparing average importance ratings (Table 2) across government, municipalities and other public sector organisations, the analysis identifies whether observed differences are statistically significant, thus highlighting potential capability gaps and sector-specific development priorities.

The lowest importance scores were observed in innovative procurement (mean 3.166) and sustainable procurement (mean 3.5), where municipalities and other public actors assigned substantially higher importance than government organisations. Conversely, the highest importance scores appeared in procurement skills (mean 4.26), contract management (mean 4.193) and tendering (mean 4.113).

The second section of our study focused on the maturity of these procurement areas (Table 3). This section follows a similar format, comparing the same groups but this time looking at how developed or mature these areas are. The lowest maturity scores appeared in innovative procurement (mean 2.677) and in analysis and reporting (mean 2.706), while the highest maturity levels were observed in tendering (mean 3.659), current state analysis (mean 3.52) and procurement skills (mean 3.516).

The results show clear and statistically significant differences between sectors in how the importance of procurement areas is perceived. Municipalities and other public-sector organisations consistently rate a large share of procurement areas as more important than central government organisations. Notably, innovative procurement and sustainable procurement receive the lowest importance scores overall, yet municipalities and other public-sector entities attribute substantially higher importance to these agility-related domains compared to government agencies. Conversely, procurement skills, contract management and tendering represent the areas with the highest importance across all organisational types.

Only two areas – procure-to-pay and current-state analysis – show no statistically significant differences between sectors. For most other areas, municipal and other public-sector organisations demonstrate a stronger perceived need to develop both structural processes (such as contract management, analysis and reporting and procurement planning) and agility-related dimensions. This indicates a broader and more ambitious development intent among these organisations. These sectoral differences in perceived importance are statistically significant, as reflected in high F-values and low p-values. From a dynamic capability perspective, this suggests that municipalities and other public-sector organisations are more advanced in “sensing” new capability needs, particularly in agility-focused areas.

Differences in maturity between sectors are more limited and concentrated primarily in structural procurement processes. Government organisations exhibit significantly higher maturity than municipalities in supplier co-operation, analysis and reporting, procure-to-pay, tendering and contract management. These findings suggest that government agencies have institutionalised core procurement routines more systematically and display more established structural capability maturity.

Municipalities, in contrast, demonstrate lower maturity in several structural domains and higher variability overall, implying that their procurement routines are less standardised and still evolving. Differences between the government and other public-sector organisations are more modest, although municipalities are significantly less mature than both groups in tendering. Despite these variations in structural areas, no significant maturity differences emerge for agility-related domains such as innovative procurement, sustainable procurement, procurement skills, procurement planning or procurement management. This indicates a relatively uniform level of development in these areas across the public sector.

The lowest maturity scores overall appear in innovative procurement and analysis and reporting, highlighting that these areas represent cross-sector development needs. In contrast, tendering, current-state analysis and procurement skills achieve the highest maturity levels, reflecting established practice and procedural standardisation across sectors.

A combined analysis of importance and maturity reveals pronounced gaps in several domains, particularly where strategic importance is high but maturity remains comparatively low (Figure 1). The most substantial gaps occur in innovative procurement, sustainable procurement, analysis and reporting and procurement skills. These areas are broadly recognised as crucial for future procurement performance, yet organisations have not developed corresponding institutional capabilities. This misalignment points to a persistent imbalance between strategic ambition and operational capability.

Municipalities and other public-sector organisations consistently assign greater importance to both agility-related and structural domains than government organisations; however, their maturity levels do not differ significantly from those of government entities in most of these areas. This indicates that although municipalities exhibit strong sensing capabilities – identifying innovation, sustainability and supplier collaboration as key development priorities – their seizing and transforming capabilities remain constrained. In other words, strategic intent is not yet matched by structural readiness and dynamic capabilities.

Government organisations, by contrast, demonstrate more advanced maturity in key structural processes, which suggests that they have been more successful in embedding routine-based procurement practices. These sectoral maturity patterns imply that capability development pathways are influenced by internal learning processes and organisational arrangements rather than administrative level alone.

Overall, the importance–maturity analysis highlights several universal development priorities across public sector. Despite high strategic emphasis on agility-related capabilities, maturity remains anchored in more traditional procurement processes. This reflects a broader pattern: public-sector organisations recognise emerging strategic priorities (such as innovation and sustainability) but lack the formalised routines, resources and cross-functional integration mechanisms necessary to operationalise them. Accordingly, the importance–maturity gap offers a concrete diagnostic for identifying where targeted development efforts are required to strengthen both structural and agility-related procurement capabilities across sectors.

According to these results municipalities could benefit from adopting the effective reporting practices observed in the governmental sector. Overall, this study reveals that there are significant differences in how various public sector groups perceive the importance, but not so significant maturity differences in those same areas. This suggests that individual organisations have different priorities and development stages in their procurement practices. These insights are crucial for understanding and addressing the diverse needs and stages of procurement areas across the public sector for tailoring procurement strategies and policies to suit the specific needs and maturity levels of each sector and organisation. These findings highlight concrete development opportunities: while sensing capabilities (recognising strategic priorities) are strong in many organisations, seizing and transforming capabilities (embedding these priorities into practice) are less advanced.

This study aimed to benchmark and compare public procurement maturity across central government, municipalities and other public-sector organisations in Finland, with particular attention to how organisations prioritise procurement development areas and how mature these capabilities are in practice. The analysis draws on self-assessment data collected via an open, continuously available PMM platform used by public organisations, which enables large-scale comparison across organisational types. The findings contribute to theory by linking sectoral maturity profiles to a dynamic capabilities perspective, showing that differences are more pronounced in perceived importance than in realised maturity, which signals uneven progress in translating sensing of new priorities into embedded routines. This interpretation aligns with the dynamic capabilities view of organisational adaptation, in which sensing emerging opportunities must be complemented by seizing and transforming capabilities that embed new priorities into organisational practices (Teece et al., 1997; Qiu et al., 2022). These findings also inform practice by identifying where benchmarking and cross-sector learning can be most valuable for capability development and policy support. Overall, the results indicate that municipalities and other public organisations articulate stronger strategic emphasis on agility-oriented areas such as innovation and sustainability, while central government displays higher maturity in core structural processes, and the persistent importance–maturity gaps highlight where strategic intent remains ahead of implementation capacity.

From a dynamic capabilities perspective, the sectoral patterns suggest an imbalance between recognising emerging procurement priorities and institutionalising them into routinised practice. Municipalities and other public organisations appear more advanced in sensing, as reflected in their higher emphasis on innovation and sustainability, yet their maturity levels do not rise correspondingly, implying constraints in seizing and transforming those priorities into established routines. Central government’s higher maturity in supplier co-operation, analysis and reporting, procure-to-pay, tendering and contract management, in turn, indicates stronger transforming capabilities rooted in more standardised structural processes (Grimbert et al., 2024; Karttunen et al., 2024), while the greater variance among municipalities points to less consolidated routines and more path-dependent development trajectories.

For practice, the consistently low maturity in innovative procurement suggests that innovation-related dynamic capabilities remain underdeveloped across the public sector, even where strategic intent is clear. This aligns with evidence that innovation outcomes in public procurement depend not only on sensing opportunities but also on the ability to mobilise decisions, resources and collaborative routines that institutionalise experimentation, iterative learning and supplier engagement (Kähkönen et al., 2025; Malacina et al., 2022). The observed importance–maturity gaps therefore signal a capability bottleneck rather than lack of ambition, highlighting the need for governance and operating models that strengthen absorptive capacity, cross-functional coordination and systematic learning from procurement outcomes, particularly in regulated and risk-averse environments where routine change is difficult to scale.

For practitioners, the results suggest that capability development should start from sector-specific gaps rather than generic “best practice” roadmaps. This interpretation reflects the staged development logic emphasised in procurement maturity research, where organisations progress through capability levels as routines and structures become institutionalised (Schiele, 2007; Concha et al., 2012). Municipalities and other public organisations place greater importance on innovation and sustainability, yet maturity remains similar across sectors, indicating that translating these priorities into practice requires deliberate investment in routines and enabling mechanisms. Concrete actions include strengthening procurement competencies tied to agile delivery, formalising experimentation and supplier engagement practices and embedding learning loops that connect tendering choices to outcomes. At the same time, municipalities could accelerate development in structural domains by adopting central government practices in analysis and reporting, contract management and standardised procure-to-pay routines, thereby reducing variability and improving consistency across units.

For policymakers and system designers, the findings support a dual approach that combines targeted capability building with structured cross-sector learning. Previous public-sector maturity frameworks, such as the Danish PMM and the Dutch MSU + model, have primarily focused on assessing procurement capability within individual organisations or programmes (Johannsen, 2013; Møller et al., 2010). More broadly, the study contributes to a still emerging academic literature on public procurement maturity, where empirical evidence remains comparatively limited and many maturity models have primarily been developed as practitioner-oriented benchmarking tools rather than as theory-driven analytical frameworks. The large data set further enables statistical comparison between central government, municipalities and other public organisations, thereby revealing sectoral capability gaps that may remain difficult to detect in other maturity assessments. These findings also complement earlier national procurement maturity model implementations. Firstly, resources and guidance should be directed to areas where importance is high but maturity is low, particularly innovative and sustainable procurement, for example through shared toolkits, training programmes, communities of practice, and procurement data and reporting standards that reduce implementation burden. Secondly, the PMM results can be used to organise benchmarking at national level by creating peer groups and reference profiles for different organisational types, enabling organisations to identify realistic development targets and learn from the sectors that demonstrate stronger maturity in specific domains. More broadly, the persistent importance–maturity misalignment highlights that policy ambitions alone are insufficient without complementary investments in institutional readiness, including governance structures, competences, data infrastructure and integration mechanisms that support implementation at scale.

Taken together, the findings point to a management gap in how public organisations translate recognised priorities into embedded procurement practice, particularly where agility ambitions meet compliance demands. Municipalities place stronger emphasis on innovation and sustainability, yet maturity remains broadly similar across sectors. This indicates that intent alone does not drive capability development and that implementation often stalls at the level of routines, analytical capacity, and governance arrangements that support consistent execution. The pattern resonates with evidence from Finnish municipalities’ purchase invoice data showing substantial reliance on in-house procurement arrangements, which can reduce the need for competitive tendering and is often used when procurement resources are limited, and tendering is complex (Ghezzi et al., 2022). These findings also nuance earlier assumptions that procurement priorities differ systematically by administrative level. Previous research suggests that state-level organisations tend to emphasise innovation and sustainability while local actors prioritise regional development (Glas et al., 2017). The Finnish PMM results, however, indicate that procurement capability maturity develops less through administrative level alone and more through organisational learning, resource configurations and institutionalised routines.

At the same time, the ongoing reform of the Finnish Public Procurement Act increases the need for robust structural capabilities in municipalities, particularly in tendering, contract management and reporting, because it seeks to limit the use of in-house entities in contexts where a functioning market exists (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland, 2024). These developments reinforce the practical value of the PMM results, which identify where importance exceeds maturity and where cross-sector learning can close persistent gaps. The impact of maturity-based development would be stronger with improved data availability, and the planned national public procurement data platform offers an opportunity to connect maturity profiles to observed purchasing behaviour and performance outcomes (Ministry of Finance, 2025). These insights underline the need for capability-building strategies that are tailored to organisational context and that strengthen the routines and data foundations required to convert shared strategic priorities into consistently mature public procurement practice.

This study advances procurement maturity research by providing national-level evidence on how procurement priorities and maturity differ across public-sector organisational types in Finland, rather than assuming a uniform development path across the public domain (Reck and Long, 1988; Van Weele et al., 1998; Schiele, 2007). The comparative results show that sectoral variation is more pronounced in perceived importance than in realised maturity and that maturity differences concentrate mainly in structural procurement processes. A persistent importance–maturity gap in agility-related areas further indicates that many organisations recognise emerging priorities such as innovation and sustainability but have not yet embedded them in consistently mature routines (Schiele, 2007; Concha et al., 2012). Overall, the findings reposition public procurement maturity as a context-dependent outcome shaped by organisational type and development emphasis rather than a single, linear trajectory (Juran, 1986).

Theoretically, these patterns extend Dynamic Capabilities Theory in a public procurement context by linking sectoral profiles to differences in sensing, seizing and transforming (Teece et al., 1997; Qiu et al., 2022). Municipalities and other public organisations assign greater importance to agility-oriented domains, suggesting stronger sensing of new strategic demands, whereas central government reports higher maturity in core structural routines, indicating more institutionalised transformation (Grimbert et al., 2024). More broadly, using maturity assessment as a comparative measurement approach responds to the limited evidence on capability development across public-sector organisational types and frames observed gaps as constraints on capability mobilisation rather than lack of strategic intent (Humphrey and Sweet, 1987; Schiele, 2007). This offers a clearer basis for theorising how public organisations translate priorities into embedded procurement practices under differing accountability and resource conditions (Concha et al., 2012).

Public-sector managers can use the PMM to create a shared, evidence-based view of procurement capability across units and roles, making strengths and weaknesses visible and comparable within and between organisations. Regular maturity reviews support structured learning by translating perceptions into prioritised development roadmaps and by enabling progress tracking over time. The results suggest that development actions should be differentiated by organisational type: central government can leverage its relatively stronger structural routines to disseminate good practice in areas such as analysis and reporting, contract management and tendering, while municipalities and other public organisations can translate their stronger emphasis on innovation and sustainability into concrete routines, governance and competence development. The observed importance–maturity gaps indicate that many organisations would benefit from focusing less on additional strategic intent and more on institutionalising implementation through standardisation, clear process ownership, supplier collaboration practices and performance-relevant reporting that supports decision-making. In this way, PMM-based benchmarking can support more targeted capability development and more consistent procurement quality across the public sector.

For policymakers, the findings provide a basis for system-level capability building that recognises sectoral variation rather than assuming a single maturity trajectory. Firstly, policy support should prioritise areas where importance is high but maturity remains low, particularly innovation- and sustainability-oriented capabilities, by linking guidance to practical implementation mechanisms such as templates, training and shared services. Secondly, national authorities can facilitate cross-sector learning by creating structured benchmarking communities where municipalities and other entities can adopt proven government practices in structural domains, while government agencies can learn from municipalities’ stronger strategic emphasis in agility-related areas. Thirdly, strengthening the availability and quality of procurement data and reporting infrastructure is essential, as development in agility-oriented procurement depends on the ability to measure outcomes, manage portfolios and learn across cases. Finally, because the PMM is grounded in established maturity and excellence traditions, it can serve as a common reference for procurement capability discussions and resource allocation, supporting transparency and coherence in reforms while allowing adaptation to different organisational mandates and constraints (Patrucco et al., 2017).

This study has several limitations that also point to clear directions for further research. Firstly, the empirical evidence is based on self-assessed survey responses, which may reflect respondents’ roles, interpretations and organisational positioning rather than fully observable procurement practices. Secondly, the data originate from an open, continuously available self-assessment system without targeted sampling, which supports broad participation but limits control over representativeness across public-sector segments and over time. Thirdly, the survey format provides a comparative overview across capability areas, yet it cannot capture in-depth explanations of why particular maturity gaps persist or how internal decision processes shape capability development. Future research should therefore investigate the underlying drivers of sectoral differences more systematically, including how regulatory conditions, resource endowments, budget constraints, governance arrangements and organisational processes influence the prioritisation and institutionalisation of procurement capabilities. Longitudinal designs would be particularly valuable for tracing how maturity evolves and whether importance–maturity gaps narrow through learning and reform efforts. In addition, qualitative case studies could unpack the mechanisms through which organisations translate recognised priorities into embedded routines. Meanwhile, linking maturity assessments to contract-level procurement data and performance indicators would enable stronger validation and a clearer understanding of how maturity relates to outcomes such as transparency, efficiency, sustainability and innovation.