IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v31y2013i1p39-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is Public Procurement a Successful Small Business Support Policy? A Review of the Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Kim Loader

    (The York Management School, University of York, Freboys Lane, Heslington, York YO10 5DG, England)

Abstract

Public procurement is a vehicle by which governments can provide direct support to small business. The public sector market is significant and attractive to suppliers of all sizes, yet the current UK government is the latest to feel the need to implement a variety of measures in an attempt to improve the chances of success for smaller suppliers. In this context I have undertaken a critical review of the existing evidence relating to this issue. I have found support for the policy to encourage small and medium-sized enterprise suppliers but also that many barriers, some first identified twenty years ago, still remain. Whilst various remedies have been proposed, it appears that public procurers lack clear priorities and objectives. This, together with a lack of regular and comprehensive supply data, is hindering improvement.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim Loader, 2013. "Is Public Procurement a Successful Small Business Support Policy? A Review of the Evidence," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(1), pages 39-55, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:31:y:2013:i:1:p:39-55
    DOI: 10.1068/c1213b
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c1213b
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c1213b?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kim Loader, 2011. "Are public sector procurement models and practices hindering small and medium suppliers?," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(4), pages 287-294, July.
    2. David Pickernell & Adrian Kay & Gary Packham & Christopher Miller, 2011. "Competing Agendas in Public Procurement: An Empirical Analysis of Opportunities and Limits in the UK for SMEs," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(4), pages 641-658, August.
    3. Kim Loader, 2007. "The Challenge of Competitive Procurement: Value for Money Versus Small Business Support," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(5), pages 307-314, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adam M. Williams, 2014. "Local preferencing for local suppliers: examining the use of locality in public procurement," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 165-172, May.
    2. Xiaoli Wang & Yun Liu & Yanbing Ju, 2018. "Sustainable Public Procurement Policies on Promoting Scientific and Technological Innovation in China: Comparisons with the U.S., the UK, Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-27, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kim Loader, 2018. "Small- and medium-sized enterprises and public procurement: A review of the UK coalition government's policies and their impact," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(1), pages 47-66, February.
    2. Tammi, Timo & Saastamoinen, Jani & Reijonen, Helen, 2020. "Public procurement as a vehicle of innovation – What does the inverted-U relationship between competition and innovativeness tell us?," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    3. Andrea S. Patrucco & Davide Luzzini & Stefano Ronchi & Michael Essig & Markus Amann & Andreas H. Glas, 2017. "Designing a public procurement strategy: lessons from local governments," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(4), pages 269-276, June.
    4. Paulo R. C. Reis & Sandro Cabral, 2015. "Public procurement strategy: the impacts of a preference programme for small and micro businesses," Public Money & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 103-110, March.
    5. Martijn van den Hurk, 2016. "Bundling the procurement of sports infrastructure projects: How neither public nor private actors really benefit," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1369-1386, December.
    6. Knut Blind & Jakob Pohlisch & Anne Rainville, 2020. "Innovation and standardization as drivers of companies’ success in public procurement: an empirical analysis," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 664-693, June.
    7. Timo Tammi & Helen Reijonen & Jani Saastamoinen, 2017. "Are entrepreneurial and market orientations of small and medium-sized enterprises associated with targeting different tiers of public procurement?," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(3), pages 457-475, May.
    8. Anthony Flynn & Paul Davis, 2016. "The policy–practice divide and SME-friendly public procurement," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(3), pages 559-578, May.
    9. Johan Stake, 2017. "Evaluating quality or lowest price: consequences for small and medium-sized enterprises in public procurement," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 42(5), pages 1143-1169, October.
    10. Schneider, Sebastian & Reiff, Annika & Schlömer-Laufen, Nadine, 2023. "Mittelstandsfreundliche Gestaltung von öffentlichen Ausschreibungen," IfM-Materialien 301, Institut für Mittelstandsforschung (IfM) Bonn.
    11. Kidalov Max V. & Snider Keith F., 2011. "US and European Public Procurement Policies for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME): A Comparative Perspective," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(4), pages 1-43, December.
    12. repec:ath:journl:tome:30:v:2:y:2013:i:30:p:244-251 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Donghun Yoon, 2023. "The Improvement Policy Design of Public Procurement Process for the Public Management Innovation in South Korea," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    14. David Pickernell & Christine Atkinson & Christopher Miller, 2015. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(1), pages 4-8, February.
    15. Bhabesh Hazarika & Pratap Ranjan Jena, 2017. "Public Procurement in India: Assessment of Institutional Mechanism, Challenges, and Reforms," Working Papers id:12004, eSocialSciences.
    16. Muhammad Ahmed Butt & Paul Katuse & Juliana Namada, 2019. "Government’s role as moderator in relationship of porter’s diamond factor conditions and firm’s performance," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 8(6), pages 40-48, October.
    17. Chunling Yu & Toru Morotomi & Qunwei Wang, 2023. "Heterogeneous Effects of Public Procurement on Environmental Innovation, Evidence from European Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(19), pages 1-23, September.
    18. Uyarra, Elvira & Zabala-Iturriagagoitia, Jon Mikel & Flanagan, Kieron & Magro, Edurne, 2020. "Public procurement, innovation and industrial policy: Rationales, roles, capabilities and implementation," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1).
    19. van Winden, Willem & Carvalho, Luís, 2019. "Intermediation in public procurement of innovation: How Amsterdam’s startup-in-residence programme connects startups to urban challenges," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    20. Piers Thompson & Wenyu Zang, 2018. "The foreign business and domestic enterprise relationship: Its implications for local entrepreneurial resilience," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 33(1), pages 10-39, February.
    21. Sandro Cabral, 2017. "Reconciling Conflicting Policy Objectives in Public Contracting: The Enabling Role of Capabilities," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(6), pages 823-853, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public sector; procurement; SMEs;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:31:y:2013:i:1:p:39-55. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.