RESUMO
Despite government devoting time and resources to ending discrimination, disparities based on gender, race, and disadvantaged business status persist in the area of business development, access to capital, and contracting opportunities. We join with the growing number of scholars that call for the concept of virtuousness to be highly placed on the business and management research agendas. This research utilizes critical participatory action research (CPAR) as a tool for building capacity to define and implement meaningful change that has the potential to correct these persistent disparities. We describe a longitudinal project that uses CPAR for addressing gender and racial disparities in local government contracting opportunities. We developed a collaboration with several community, women and minority-serving and legal partners in order to move beyond documenting the problems and toward advancing corrective social policy changes based on the key principles of the CPAR methodology. We described this work in the context of social virtuousness and discuss the implications for future research and public policy.
RESUMO
While minority-business enterprises (MBEs) have gained some access to local government contracts during the last three decades, these firms continue to receive a small share of local government contract spending relative to the number of available firms. Researchers have suggested two general explanations for the low representation of MBEs in contract awards: (1) lack of qualifications and capacity among MBEs, and (2) public and private discrimination against MBEs in contracting processes. This study on prime contract opportunities in a Northern central city and county with a large minority population finds that low bid rates greatly contribute to the low MBE shares of prime contracts and that bidding is reduced by both local government processes and characteristics of the firms. Some implications of these findings are that local governments need to: (1) monitor MBE shares of prime contract bids by size of contract and use share of bids as one measure of program and organizational effectiveness; (2) identify MBEs that are qualified for prime contracts and encourage and help interested firms to submit competitive bids; and (3) ensure that local government policies and practices do not diminish access to information about prime contract opportunities for qualified and interested minority firms. Another implication is that bidders lists should not be a primary basis for determining MBE availability, since many qualified and interested MBEs do not bid because of perceived barriers in local government.
