学位论文之外国中小企业融资(英文版)(pdf 44页).pdf

Volume 13 Issue 42011Article 2 Business and Politics US and European Public Procurement Policies for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises SME A Comparative Perspective Max V Kidalov Naval Postgraduate School Keith F Snider Naval Postgraduate School Recommended Citation Kidalov Max V and Snider Keith F 2011 US and European Public Procurement Policies for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises SME A Comparative Perspective Business and Politics Vol 13 Iss 4 Article 2 DOI 10 2202 1469 3569 1367 Available at 2011 De Gruyter All rights reserved US and European Public Procurement Policies for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises SME A Comparative Perspective Max V Kidalov and Keith F Snider Abstract This paper provides a comparative perspective of public procurement policies for small and medium sized enterprises SME in the United States and Europe Public procurement is increasingly recognized as a strategic function of public administration because of the huge amount of resources it consumes as well as the important policy objectives it seeks to promote including SME related objectives Progress towards meeting SME procurement participation goals however remains elusive on both sides of the Atlantic Policy makers and administrators have little comparative research upon which to draw regarding the effectiveness of various policy approaches a shortcoming this paper seeks to address An institutional perspective is adopted which helps explain similarities and differences in U S and European SME policies KEYWORDS small and medium enterprises SME small business public procurement government contracting Author Notes The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Acquisition Research Program at the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey CA and thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive criticisms INTRODUCTION Though labeled in the past as a clerical back office function public procurement1 is increasingly recognized as a critical area of public policy and management 2 With most nations spending about 20 percent of gross domestic product GDP on public procurement3 and developing nations spending up to 50 percent 4 the sheer magnitude of resources devoted to public procurement compels attention Furthermore governments use procurement to promote policy objectives such as economic goals e g supporting domestic suppliers or local economic development social goals e g remedies for historically disadvantaged groups and environmental goals e g green procurement 5 The role that public procurement played during 2008 2009 in national responses to the global economic crisis illustrates its use as a policy lever 6 Attention to small businesses or small and medium sized enterprises SMEs as they are known outside the United States represents a particularly important area of public procurement policy 7 Through SME related policies nations seek outcomes such as assuring domestic sources of supply redressing past discrimination boosting local economies promoting innovation and enhancing competition 8 Although scholars have studied various national approaches to SME procurement policy 9 including the approach of the European Union EU 10 little work exists from a comparative perspective Policy makers thus lack information on other nations policies their advantages and disadvantages and the extent to which they may be applied more broadly Here we seek to begin to fill this gap 1 We define public procurement as the means by which government agencies and organizations acquire supplies and services from outside sources This definition encompasses acquisition contracting buying renting leasing and purchasing Thai 2001 42 43 2 Gordon Zemansky and Sekwat 2000 Snider 2006 Thai 2001 3 Carter and Grimm 2001 European Commission EC 2010 4 Schiavo Campo and Sundaram 2000 315 5 Arrowsmith 1995 Arrowsmith and Hartley 2002 Knight Caldwell Harland and Telgren 2003 McCrudden 2007 Snider and Rendon 2008 6 See for example Bartha and Snider 2010 7 We use SME to refer both to smaller businesses generally as well as to small businesses owned by members of disadvantaged groups such as minorities women native groups and disabled veterans We discuss formal criteria for defining an SME e g the number of employees payroll size etc later in the paper 8 Schiavo Campo and Sundaram 2000 320 60 9 See for example Bolton 2006 Fee Erridge and Hennigan 2002 Parker 2002 10 Dannreuther 1999 2007 1 Kidalov and Snider US and European SME Procurement Policies Published by De Gruyter 2011 PURPOSE METHOD SCOPE This paper explores similarities and differences in SME procurement policies developed by the U S federal government and those developed in Europe with emphasis on the EU As we argue in the paper these policies are rooted in the particular political economic systems that have evolved on both sides of the Atlantic and in the specific policy goals that public authorities hope to achieve via public procurement As for its conceptual contributions the paper situates the comparison of SME policies primarily in terms of institutional theory which enables use of recent institutional analyses of policy trends in the United States and Europe Our goal then is for practitioners to gain insights into a wider array of possibilities for achieving SME related goals and for scholars to discover fertile ground for theory building and more in depth policy studies We do not intend that the reader draw normative inferences or conclusions about what the United States and Europe ought or ought not to do in light of the other s SME procurement policies Space limitations preclude the sort of comparative institutional analysis that would uncover the extent to which one nation s policies might be adopted by another 11 As an exploratory study the comparative methodology we use in this paper relies mainly on reviews of current SME policy documents e g laws and regulations in the United States and Europe supplemented as appropriate with literature on various national SME approaches Because we pursue description we make no recommendations regarding SME policy rather as noted previously we seek to stimulate further comparative analysis that might make policy recommendations possible Further although we compare policies that are representative of U S and European approaches we do not attempt to provide a comprehensive review or analysis of SME policies Rather our intent is to provide a broad policy survey to serve both practitioners and scholars of public procurement In attempting such a comparative review in limited space we recognize that we can sketch out only some of the significant features of the SME policy terrain an approach that risks ignoring others In particular we adopt the constraint of treating the United States and Europe as our units of analysis noting and emphasizing the general SME policy tendencies that are evident in each while by necessity ignoring many substantive features For example in focusing on Europe as an SME policy entity we generally suppress attention to member states national SME policies and how those operate under EU principles such as subsidiarity and supranational cooperation Another example is our focus on only 11 For such a discussion regarding innovation policies see for example Lundvall Intarakumnerd and Vang 2006 and T dtling and Trippl 2005 2 Business and Politics Vol 13 2011 Iss 4 Art 2 DOI 10 2202 1469 3569 1367 the U S federal government which ignores SME procurement policies in all fifty states and in many local governments We justify this tactic however not only by concern for space limitations but also by borrowing from Matten and Moon12 in their use of institutional theory to compare U S and European approaches to corporate social responsibility CSR Matten and Moon note that institutional theory facilitates cross national analysis with its emphasis on the stable and accepted norms and structures that evolve within an organization or society 13 They argue for significant institutional commonalities e g political cultural financial among western European states as well as for significant institutional differences between those states and the United States This leads them to define distinct U S and European national business systems 14 each with its distinctive CSR approach We likewise assume sufficient commonalities and differences to warrant treating the United States and Europe as units of analysis and we make further use of the arguments of Matten and Moon later in the paper The rest of the paper is organized as follows Following some brief background discussion on SME policy issues we proceed in the paper to the main body of comparisons between U S and European structural and allocative policies We then turn to interpreting the comparisons through the lens of the recent institutional analyses mentioned previously We conclude with some implications for theory policy and practice BACKGROUND SME POLICY AND TENSIONS SMEs are critical to the U S and European economies representing over 95 percent of all firms in both In the United States SMEs employ over half of all private sector employees create more than half of non farm private GDP produce thirteen times more patents per employee than large firms and have generated 64 percent of new jobs over the past fifteen years 15 Similar statistics are found in Europe where SMEs account for two thirds of employment in the non financial business sector In both Europe and the United States micro firms fewer than ten employees make up more than 90 percent of all firms 16 Given their economic importance consensus has arisen on both sides of the Atlantic that SMEs merit special policy attention especially since large businesses typically enjoy a relatively privileged position in the economic 12 2008 13 March and Olsen 1989 Huntington 1969 14 March and Olsen 1989 407 09 15 Small Business Administration SBA 2011 16 GHK 2010 3 Kidalov and Snider US and European SME Procurement Policies Published by De Gruyter 2011 policymaking of capitalist nations 17 Additionally SMEs have come to be seen in some nations as an appropriate venue for granting preferences to specific disadvantaged groups this concept is discussed further later in the paper McCrudden18 has argued that the state through its actions and policies should lead and serve as an example for sustainability initiatives in the private sector Although many firms call attention to their concerns for some aspects of sustainability particularly environmental and social sustainability 19 they rarely express concern for economic sustainability through the maintenance of a robust SME sector Thus in terms of economic sustainability firms competitive instincts prevail and it remains for governments on both sides of the Atlantic to lead through interventions intended to sustain SME health From an institutional perspective both the United States and Europe exhibit general social agreement that SMEs are valued components of their societies and worthy of special treatment which has been translated into the elements of policy discussed below Neither the United States nor Europe however has agreed upon the precise nature and extent of special treatment for SMEs Reasons for this lack of consensus include competing stakeholder voices i e from different SME constituencies and uncertainty regarding policy options e g Do SMEs derive more benefit from loan assistance programs or from public procurement preferences 20 Especially critical in the SME public procurement context are tensions emanating from competing values that become embodied in competing policy objectives For example tensions naturally arise between SME preferences and fair competition principles 21 Policy tensions are also illustrated by the issue of contract consolidation or bundling 22 The practice of bundling several small procurement actions into one large contract is commonly justified as enabling savings through volume buying as well as through lower administrative costs e g a smaller procurement staff 23 Typically however bundling puts individual SMEs at a disadvantage because only large firms or teams of firms are able to bid successfully on large contracts Such issues exemplify classic tensions between concerns for managerial efficiency value for money and concerns for political responsiveness to various constituencies 24 Thus as with other areas of public policy SME public 17 Anglund 1999 18 2007 19 See for example Pagell Wu and Wasserman 2010 20 Beaver and Prince 2004 Parker 2002 21 Thai 2001 22 Government Accountability Office GAO 2004 23 See for example Bowman Reed Hudgens and Searle 2006 and Rendon 2005 24 Loader 2007 4 Business and Politics Vol 13 2011 Iss 4 Art 2 DOI 10 2202 1469 3569 1367 procurement objectives are often contested unclear or misaligned As a result policy makers and administrators in procurement face difficult choices regarding SMEs and must make sound decisions both economic and social under a variety of institutional pressures COMPARING SME PROCUREMENT POLICIES Our comparison of SME policies is organized according to the typology of structural policies that govern some aspect of citizens activities and allocative policies that confer either some value or benefits on a group e g agricultural subsidies or rearrange value or benefits between or among groups e g unemployment programs 25 In general these two broad types of public policy are distinguished by the extent of ambiguity between winners and losers Little such ambiguity exists in allocative policies while in structural policies benefits find expression in abstract terms of rules and structures with any tangible benefits likely deferred Salisbury and Heinz argue that the more costs involved in organizing a requisite coalition on an issue the more likely that the policy outcome will be structural rather than allocative To give an example the U S Congress would find it difficult and time consuming to make individual procurement decisions allocative policies thus it enacts legislation that designates positions for procurement decision makers within the executive branch a structural policy In this paper we have organized our discussion of different SME procurement policy areas under headings developed by Kidalov26 and categorized as noted previously as either structural or allocative Structural policy areas include 1 general frameworks 2 SME definitions 3 specialized organizations to assist SMEs 4 SME access to suitable contracts 5 means to assure transparency of SME business opportunities and 6 stimulation of innovation in SMEs Allocative policy areas include 1 procurement goals and set asides 2 subcontracting goals and practices and 3 promotion of economic and social sustainability For each area the U S approach is described first followed by the European approach followed by comments on the comparison 25 Salisbury and Heinz 1970 26 2011 5 Kidalov and Snider US and European SME Procurement Policies Published by De Gruyter 2011 General SME Policy Framework The United States Enacted in 1953 at the initiative of President Eisenhower the Small Business Act27 and its subsequent amendments provide the basis of SME policy to maintain competition in the U S economy This law emphasizes full and free competition as the essence of the American private enterprise system and unfettered competition as essential for achievement of pro competitive economic goals It also notes the social goal of increasing opportunities for personal initiative and judgment and the defense policy goal of strengthening national security through preservation and expansion of competition 28 To implement these goals the Small Business Act established two related principles to govern federal contract awards The principle of maximum practicable opportunity is implemented through structural and facilitative process type actions such as procurement strategies subcontracting plans and award procedures publicizing of procurement opportunities providing small firms with information on procurement laws and regulations unbundling large contracts and reserving or setting procurement opportunities aside for small firms The second principle of fair proportion is implemented through allocative planning measures such as contracting and subcontracting goals established by Congress the President federal buying agencies and the Small Business Administration SBA as well as through accountability reporting such as the annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard 29 General SME Policy Framework Europe In Europe SME public procurement policy has been undertaken both by the EU government bodies as well as by national and local governments Recognizing that SMEs are a unique source of innovation and competition EU procurement policy allows those firms to strengthen their competitiveness and enables them to contribute more towards growth employment and competitiveness of the European economy 30 In 2000 the European Council adopted The European Charter for Small Enterprises which directed the European Commission EC and member states to pursue the reforms of a 27 U S Code 2010 28 U S Code 2010 29 SBA 2010 30 GHK 2010 5 6 Business and Politics Vol 13 2011 Iss 4 Art 2 DOI 10 2202 1469 3569 1367 true internal market user friendly for small business in critical areas for development of small businesses including public procurement 31 Historically European efforts to promote SME procurements have been subject to a number of constraints imposed by two sources First the European Community Treaty as amended and now known as the European Union Treaty which covers most public sector procurement contracts within the EU sets down principles to prevent discrimination against firms from any member state Second the EC s procurement directives further implement the Treaty by establishing procedures and standards based on openness non discrimination and competition for choosing tenderers and awarding contracts 32 A twenty year old EC communication opined