Diversity Governance by Convenience? Federal Contracting for Minority-Owned Small Businesses
Abstract
Public procurement serves as the means by which public goods and services are acquired through contracts with private firms, as well as a means by which governments promote policies such as socioeconomic diversity. In the U.S., diversity goals are pursued through preferences for contract awards by public agencies to businesses owned by members of disadvantaged groups, such as Native Americans, women, and disabled veterans. In this paper we argue that the extent to which these policies are realized depends substantially on implementation--specifically, on agency contracting capacity. Given current deficiencies in federal agency contracting capacity, diversity governance is largely missing. Rather, agencies use minority-based preferences in order to reduce their workload, thereby awarding contracts for convenience rather than to redress disadvantage and discrimination. We demonstrate that, when agencies use these expedient measures to sidestep the intent of public policy, they risk diverting contracts from deserving to undeserving firms. Unless agencies increase their contacting capacity, diversity governance in this important area of public administration will remain impoverished.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Public Procurement and Corporate Social Responsibility: A Comparison of Private Firms and U.S. Defense Contractors
Pratt, Andrew J.; Rendon, Rene G.; Snider, Keith F. (2012-08);This paper compares the levels of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) emphasis between defense contractors and private firms that receive the majority of revenues from commercial sources. Corporate websites from three ... -
Expanding the talent pool in the area of Homeland Security
Yee, Lai Sun M. (Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School, 2005-12);The attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 spurred the growth of the field of homeland security in the United States. It would be beneficial to expand the talent and brain pool from which leaders can be ... -
Corruption, governance, investment and growth in emerging markets
Everhart, Stephen S.; Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge; McNab, Robert M. (Taylor & Francis, 2009);The article investigates the potential impact of corruption on economic growth by examining the effect that corruption may have on several significant determinants of economic growth, namely, investment in human, private ...