Implementing Government Policy in Supply Chains: An International Coproduction Study of Public Procurement

Abstract

Public procurement is the commercial arm of governments, contracting for goods, and services to feed public sector service provision. However, mainstream operations and supply chain management journals have published little on supply chains to governments, public procurement, and the significance of engaging small businesses in government supply chains. Policy feedback theory and thirteen coproduced international case studies of public procurement and small business agency dyadic relationships are used to explore this space. The research highlights the importance of both public procurement and small business as areas of policy and supply chain management research. Policy feedback theory is introduced as a means to understand relationships and is applied to a coproduction study to understand how supply chain management research can both explore and change policy.

Procurement policy and SME participation in public purchasing

“…PP regulation arguably is a salient dimension of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, an element of both the "quality of government" that helps to define the investment climate in which firms operate and a specific source of demand for SMEs. 7 There is a substantial literature assessing the (potential) role of PP as a mechanism to support innovation (Edler and Georghiou 2007;Aschoff and Sofka 2009;Edler and Yeow 2016) and SME entrepreneurship (Dennis Jr 2011; Harland et al 2019). One reason is that PP can represent a meaningful source of demand for firms, so that a government contract may encourage firms to invest more, expand employment, and increase productivity (Ferraz et al 2015;Hoekman and Sanfilippo 2019).…”

The Implications of Firm‐Specific Policy Risk, Policy Uncertainty, and Industry Factors for Inventory: A Resource Dependence Perspective

“…Government can serve two main roles regarding these resource flows. First, the government can directly provide resources to firms, such as through direct cash transfers (e.g., corporate bailouts—Faccio, Masulis, & McConnell, 2006) and government contracts (Eckerd & Girth, 2017; Harland, Telgen, Callender, Grimm, & Patrucco, 2019). We do not examine this role given that past work provides detailed treatment of the direct flow of resources from government to firms (e.g., Eckerd & Girth, 2017; Harland et al, 2019).…”

Maximising “Community Benefits” in public procurement: tensions and trade-offs

“…A range of legislative and policy instruments exist in the UK to drive sustainable public procurement. However, relatively few published studies have examined the effect of such procurement policies on supply chains or the barriers faced by organisations seeking to realise socioeconomic value through procurement (Eadie, McKeown, & Anderson, 2011;Gormly, 2014;Harland, Telgen, Callendar, Grimm, & Patrucco, 2019). One such policy is Community Benefits (CBs), described as "socioeconomic criteria that are inserted into supply contracts" (p.217, Preuss, 2009).…”

“…The majority of previous research has been concerned with the environmental or economic aspects of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in a private sector context (Miemczyk, Johnsen, & Macquet, 2012). Although studies have previously examined how public sector organisations can obtain wider value for money through public procurement (McKevitt & Davis, 2016;Preuss, 2009), to date there has been little research focusing on the impact on SSCM within the public sector (Harland et al, 2019). This omission is important since public procurement represents big spend, at about 15-20% GDP globally (UNECE, 2020).…”