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This paper aims to inform strategies to enhance public procurement opportunities for women-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). To do so, the study examines two research questions: To what extent are women-owned enterprises under-represented among SME suppliers to government; and Do barriers to public procurement – as perceived by SME owners – differ across gender?

The study draws on the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and on theories of role congruity and social feminism to develop the study’s hypotheses. Empirical analyses rely on comparisons of a sample of 1,021 SMEs that had been suppliers to government and 9,376 employer firms that had not been suppliers to government. Data were collected by Statistics Canada and are nationally representative. Logistic regression analysis was used to control for systemic firm and owner differences.

Controlling firm and owner attributes, majority women-owned businesses were underrepresented as SME suppliers to government in some, but not all sectors. Women-owned SMEs in Wholesale and Retail and in Other Services were, ceteris paribus, half as likely as to be government suppliers as counterpart SMEs owned by men. Among Goods Producers and for Professional, Scientific and Technical Services SMEs, there were no significant gender differences in the propensity to supply the federal government. “Complexity of the contracting process” and “difficulty finding contract opportunities” were the obstacles to contracting cited most frequently.

The limitations of using secondary analyses of data are well documented and apply here. The findings reflect only the perspectives of “successful bidders” and do not capture SMEs that submitted bids but were not successful. Furthermore, the survey did not include questions about sub-contractor enterprises, data that would likely provide even more insights about SMEs in government supply chains. Accordingly, the study could not address sub-contracting strategies to increase the number of women-owned businesses on government contracts. Statistics Canada’s privacy protocols also limited the extent to which the research team could examine sub-groups of small business owners, such as visible minorities and Indigenous/Aboriginal persons. It is also notable that much of the SME literature, as well as this study, define gender as a dichotomous (women/female, men/male) attribute. Comparing women/female and men/males implicitly assumes within group homogeneity. Future research should use a more inclusive definition of gender. Research is also required to inform about the obstacles to government procurement among the population of SMEs that were unsuccessful in their bids.

The study provides benchmarks on, and directions to, enhance the participation of women-owned SMEs or enterprises in public procurement. Strategies to support women-owned small businesses that comply with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are advanced.

The study offers insights to reconcile economic efficiency and social (gender equity) policy goals in the context of public procurement. The “policy-practice divides” in public procurement and women’s enterprise policies are discussed.

The study is among the first to use a feminist lens to examine the associations between gender of SME ownership and public procurement, while controlling for other salient owner and firm attributes.

This study attempts to examine the factors that influence user intention to adopt e-procurement in the Nigerian public sector.

A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data from 278 procurement and information technology (IT) departments’ officials of key federal government ministries and agencies. The technology acceptance model (TAM) model was adopted and extended with security-related factors, namely perceived trust and perceived security. A partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach was used to test and validate the model.

The results indicated that perceived usefulness is the best predictor of users’ intention to adopt e-procurement, followed by perceived security and perceived trust. In contrast, however, perceived ease of use was found to have a significant negative effect on the intention to adopt e-procurement.

This study is among the first in the Nigerian public sector context to evaluate users’ perceptions on e-procurement adoption with the use of a distinctive research model (TAM). The study's findings contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing the adoption of e-procurement in the Nigerian public sector.

Social return on investment (SROI) is a systematic way of incorporating social values of different stakeholders into public sector decision-making on sustainability. This study aims to identify salient factors that influence SROI implementation.

The interactions of four Dutch municipalities and their social enterprises were examined, by analyzing relevant documents and interviewing key actors.

External forces appear to have little influence on SROI implementation. Management systems, legal restrictions in relation to privacy and the administrative burden appear to hinder SROI implementation. Findings suggest that trust among the parties involved and their representatives is a major driver for SROI development. SROI is not measured well enough, which complicates analyzing and reporting its development.

Achieving collaboration through trust is a characteristic of stewardship theory, and therefore useful for studying social sustainability. Combining agency and stewardship theory provides useful insights concerning the application of control mechanisms versus empowerment.

Barriers can be overcome by informing and engaging suppliers in SROI initiatives. Furthermore, findings of this study suggest that it is easier for municipalities to incorporate SROI when social firm activities are insourced. An independent procurement function stimulates SROI development. Engaged professionals can make the difference in SROI policy implementation, more so than written policies.

SROI enables social sustainability. SROI can be used by public agencies to provide meaningful activities for the long-term unemployed and underprivileged adolescents.

The study is the first empirical work that relates public procurement to SROI implementation and its effect on suppliers. The findings provide valuable insights into government influence on social enterprises.

The aim is to examine the importance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) see in different network partners regarding successful tendering in public procurement, and whether this perception predicts the number of joint bids and wins.

The data were collected by an electronic questionnaire which was sent to the registered users of the leading electronic platform for public procurement in Finland. The data were analysed with statistical methods.

The findings suggest that a favourable perception of the importance of horizontal networks in public procurement is associated with a larger number of joint bids and better success in joint bidding. However, the results do not establish a positive correlation between vertical networks and consortium bidding.

The data were collected from a single EU country. Since the criteria for bidding consortia may vary between countries, different results might have been achieved from other countries.

SMEs should be encouraged to form bidding consortia and acquire related experience. Policymakers should minimise barriers to consortium bidding, e.g. by offering more information. They should also assess the merits of joint bidding because they rarely encourage SMEs to bid as a consortium.

Consortium bidding is a way of enhancing SMEs’ possibilities to participate in public tender contests, even in large contracts.

While consortium bidding has been recognised to enhance SMEs’ possibilities of participating in public procurement, there is limited research into how SMEs’ network collaborations relate to bidding as a consortium.

Food and beverage (F&B) small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must diversify their markets and obtain predictable sources of revenues to withstand difficult and volatile periods such as the post-pandemic geopolitical scenario, recently burdened by the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. On the other hand, another strand of the literature suggests that public procurement could be considered a great source of income, enabling solid contracts, revenues and cash-flow stability. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the role of public procurement, the adoption of e-commerce platforms and their interactions in affecting the exporting performances of SMEs operating in the F&B sector.

The study retrieves data from 2,186 Italian F&B manufacturing SMEs relying on Margò by Cribis database. Therefore, it conducts a structured equational model (SEM) to test the developed hypotheses empirically.

The findings reveal that digital selling platforms positively affect exports, whereas public procurement negatively affects F&B SMEs exports. Nonetheless, findings underline that the interaction between public procurement and the adoption of digital selling platforms dampens public procurement's negative effects on exports.

This study brings an original contribution to the F&B literature by conducting empirical research on an extensive sample of firms from one of the most influential countries in the F&B vertical, Italy, with officially registered data. More importantly, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study pioneers the investigation of the relationship between public procurement and e-commerce platforms in affecting F&B SMEs' export performances.

This study aims to examine the effect of supplier monitoring on procurement performance in the Tanzanian public sector, as well as how contract management difficulty moderates the effect of supplier monitoring on procurement performance.

In this paper cross-sectional data were collected from 179 Tanzanian public procuring organizations using a structured survey questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the PROCESS macro were used to analyse the collected data.

Supplier monitoring has a positive and significant relationship with procurement performance in terms of cost reduction, lead times and buyer satisfaction. Furthermore, contract management difficulty has a negative moderating effect on the relationships between supplier monitoring and procurement performance dimensions.

Because public procurement is governed by laws and procedures, generalization of results should be done with caution. This is because the study is currently limited to Tanzanian public procurement. Apart from contract management difficulty, future research can look at other factors that may be needed to moderate the link between supplier monitoring and procurement performance.

Procurement practitioners must monitor major suppliers’ timeliness, product quality and order accuracy in order to improve procurement performance. Furthermore, proper contract management is required, which necessitates effectively reinforcing procurement contract managers’ responsibilities and providing contract management training for practitioners in order to control anomalies when suppliers and contracts are involved.

By adding a moderating variable, the study adds to the literature on supplier monitoring in public procurement and the on-going debate on supplier monitoring and performance.

This study aims to build on the dynamic capability view by examining dynamic capabilities associated with public value in public procurement.

A qualitative case study approach is used in this study. The interview and secondary data consist of eight cases of value-creating procurement from four public organizations.

The findings connect dynamic capabilities and public value in terms of innovation generation and promotion, well-functioning supplier markets, public procurement process effectiveness, environmental and social sustainability and quality and availability of products or services.

Dynamic capabilities in public procurement are necessary to improve public procurement.

This study extends understanding of how sensing, seizing and transforming capabilities contribute to public value creation in both innovative and less innovative (i.e. ordinary) procurement scenarios.

The literature on public procurement (PP) has increased significantly in recent years, and, to date, several reviews have been conducted to study this relevant subject. Nevertheless, a bibliometric analysis of the PP knowledge domain is still missing. To fill this knowledge gap, a bibliometric review is carried out to investigate the current state of PP research.

A total of 640 journal articles are selected from the Scopus database for the final analysis. The performance indicators of the literature are identified and explained through bibliometric analysis. Furthermore, the conceptual and intellectual structures are studied through a keyword co-occurrence network and bibliographic coupling.

The results of the review indicate that PP research has increased significantly in recent years. The top ten most productive journals, countries, authors and academic institutions are identified. The findings from the keyword co-occurrence network reveal six main research themes including innovation, corruption and green public procurement (GPP). By applying bibliographic coupling, the focus of PP research revolves around seven thematic areas: GPP, corruption, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in PP, electronic PP, innovation, labour standards and service acquisition. The research potential of each thematic area is evaluated using a model based on maturity and recent attention (RA).

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to successfully organise, synthesise and quantitatively analyse the development of the PP domain amongst a large number of publications on a large time scale.

The purpose of this paper is to address the barriers that Dutch housing associations encounter in implementing new procurement strategies.

Several aspects of purchasing, portfolio management, project delivery and supply management are discussed in relation to the changing role of housing associations as semi-public commissioning bodies in the Dutch construction industry, based on data derived from workshops with six Dutch housing associations.

Housing associations are adapting their procurement strategy towards a more integrative and performance-based approach to supply management. Due to the complexity of implementing this process, housing associations struggle especially with moving beyond pilot projects, increasing the maturity levels throughout the organisation and aligning new policies with daily practices at a tactical and an operational level.

Increased knowledge of change processes and seeing the potential of maturity models will be valuable for practitioners who are dealing with changes on the work floor.

Client organisations are considered one of the key drivers of change in the construction industry. Insights into these particular organisational change processes contribute to the potential of industry reform.

Most studies on collaboration and integration in the supply chain focus on the inter-organisational level or on the supply side, rather than the internal organisation of the client.

Governments worldwide seek to optimize value in public project bids. Social procurement (SP) has become a global tool for achieving project goals. The purpose of this study is to assess the understanding of SP among contractors and identify its drivers to optimize the value associated with public projects.

A total of 15 major contractors were interviewed to obtain their views on SP, appreciate their current practices and identify the main drivers of SP in projects. A semistructured interview was used to gather relevant data. Neo-institutional theory is the lens of the study used to provide the focus of the research. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic data analysis technique.

The study found that SP is understood as corporate social responsibility and is not handled in a structured manner guided by policies or clearly defined procedures. Additionally, research has shown that compliance requirements, rather than value and goodwill, are the main inspiration for SP practices.

The study’s limitation is the fact that it was conducted in the context of Botswana and only used the interview technique as the solo data collection method. The other limitation is the lack of empirical literature on SP concerning the lack of SP policy in Botswana.

This study raises awareness of the concept of SP among contractors in Botswana and eases its implementation within the industry.