Table 2.

Literature overview barriers for awarding public contracts to small and medium-sized enterprises

Awarding barriersSource
Non-competitive procurement proceduresEßig and Glas (2015) 
Increasing award volumes lead to disadvantageous admission requirements for larger business sizes; large contract volumesEßig and Glas (2015); Allen (2021); Schiele (2020); European Commission (2016) 
Proposal phase involves high costs and is perceived as time-consuming; procurement process is costly, time-consuming, and outcome uncertainEuropean Commission (2021b); Loader (2013); Woldesenbet and Worthington (2019) 
Conflicting priorities usually result in a focus on efficiency and return or cost (savings)Harland et al. (2019) 
Narrow definition of return and costs; slow payment; lack of feedback; price and contract size; meeting the requirements of large contractsLoader (2013); Loader and Norton (2015); European Commission (2021b); Vluggen et al. (2019) 
Poorly formulated selection criteria; lack of information on the proposed solution; absence of measurement mechanismsEuropean Commission (2021b); Manunza (2018) Aboelazm (2023) 
Lack of understanding public procurement principles and knowledge of tendering strategies for successEvans et al. (2022) 

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