SME Access to Government Procurement Markets: Inhibitors to Change

Targeted strategies to develop intellectual capital are critical to improve the access of SMEs to government procurement markets

A Methodology for Identifying Ways to Improve SME Access to Government Procurement Markets within the APEC Region

This paper outlines the methodology used in an APEC project to identify inhibitors that restrict SME access to government procurement markets in the region, and to develop strategies and solutions to reduce these barriers. Developing SME access to government procurement markets across the APEC region is a capacity building activity that supports the principles and objectives of the APEC Bogor goals. This project was an opportunity to identify public and private sector actions to help SMEs develop their local strengths while capturing the benefits of globalisation and trade liberalisation. The paper describes the strategies and structure of a project that effectively encouraged member economies to share experiences and lessons learnt relating to SME access to government procurement. The methodology can be used in future projects concerning SMEs and international markets or other problem-solving projects where a highly visual interactive style is desirous to accommodate multiple nationalities and experiences. Theme of conference this paper was presented at: Decision Making in Emerging Market( Of Asia-Pacific Community) : What?, How? and Why

If You Can Measure It, You Can Manage It: A Case of Intellectual Capital

Despite the great importance attributed to intellectual capital (IC) in the past two decades or so, its measurement and management have remained elusive, mainly because of inappropriate prior models of IC measurement. The purpose of this study is, therefore, to make adjustments to an existing model, the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC), and to present an adjusted-VAIC model to measure IC. We tested our new model on data from 10 emerging and developed world markets and obtained more consistent results than prior studies. Our results indicate a significant positive relationship between IC and its components (human, innovation and physical capitals) and firm performance. Therefore, the adjusted-VAIC model can be used with confidence to measure IC.Our study has important implications for both academia and industry concerning the measurement of IC