ABSTRACT
Small and medium sized (as well as minority owned) firms are the actors that today receive the greatest attention from policy-makers when dealing with procurement design. More specifically, SMEs are a type of social and institutional actor that permeates, with its numbers, the political and economic processes of any country. While looked at with a high degree of attention by policy- makers and politicians as SMEs might represent a powerful engine of innovation and growth and at the same time of electoral advantage, they are also potentially downplayed by the same actors for their size. It should therefore not come as a surprise that a large debate and an impressive series of policy initiatives have taken place over the years and over countries to reconcile these two contrasting dimensions through a ‘social’ use of public procurement meant to protect in some ways SMEs’ performance and even existence.
