Report offers roadmap to increase diversity in federal government suppliers
Professor Barbara Orser and a research team from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa have examined diversity in small and medium enterprise (SME) suppliers to the Government of Canada. Conducted in collaboration with Public Services and Procurement Canada, the report, Benchmarking SMEs as Suppliers to the Government of Canada: Inclusion, Innovation and International Trade, provides the federal government with a roadmap to increase diversity in SME suppliers.
The study addressed three critical questions identified in previous Telfer research.
- To what extent is the gender of firm owners associated with the propensity to contract with the Canadian federal government?
- To what extent is being a supplier to the federal government associated with SME performance, in terms of the likelihood of innovation, exporting and growth?
- What are the primary obstacles associated with contracting with the Canadian federal government, as perceived by different categories of SME suppliers?