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In spite of the fact that public procurement is increasingly becoming a popular technique for small business empowerment, there are various challenges facing SMEs in public procurement. Using Nigeria as a platform, this paper examines barriers that hinder SMEs access to public procurement markets. Data were collected from literature review, analysis of documents and semi-structured interviews. The results show that lack of transparency in tendering often discourages SMEs from getting involved in public procurement in Nigeria. It further highlights the need for actions to address issues facing SMEs at different stages of the procurement process. By integrating research findings into existing knowledge, a taxonomy of techniques for enhancing SMEs access to public procurement is proposed. The taxonomy reveals specific schemes and measures to promote SME participation in public procurement. This will offer guidance to governments, policy makers and procurement experts on the implementation of SME-friendly procurement practices. The study adds to the on-going debates on the significance of public procurement policy on SME development.

This research work investigates the simultaneous interaction of entrepreneurial orientation dimensions of the firm with the leader’s psychological factors for a better explanation of SMEs’ performance. The universal and contingency approach are reductionist and do not allow us to achieve the research objective. So, to study the simultaneous interaction between a great number of variables, we are mobilizing for this purpose the configurational approach and particularly, the perspective of alignment (fit) as “configuration”. Indeed, we are pursuing a quantitative methodological approach and conducting a field survey through a research questionnaire distributed to 100 industrial Tunisian SMEs.

The results of this research reveal a taxonomy of four configurations of industrial Tunisian SMEs significantly different from each other and which have different effects on performance. The configurations are named, the “Leader”, the “Creative”, the “Ambitious” and the “Conservative”.

Do SMEs cluster around different types of innovation activities? Are there patterns of SME innovation activities? To investigate we develop a taxonomy of innovation activities in SMEs using a qualitative study, followed by a survey. First, based upon our qualitative research and literature review we develop a comprehensive list of innovation activities SMEs typically engage in. We then conduct a factor analysis to determine if these activities can be combined into factors. We identify three innovation activity factors: R&D activities, incremental innovation activities and cost innovation activities. We use these factors to identify three clusters of firms engaging in similar innovation activities: active innovators, incremental innovators and opportunistic innovators. The clusters are enriched by validating that they also exhibit significant internal similarities and external differences in their innovation skills, demographics, industry segments and family business ownership. This research contributes to innovation and SME theory and practice by identifying SME clusters based upon their innovation activities.