Capital Access Barriers to Public Procurement Performance: The Moderating Effects of Ethnicity, Gender and Education

This article expands on barriers to entry and repositioning theory by examining the moderating effects of small firm owner/manager characteristics on the relationship between their perceptions of capital access barriers and their firm's market penetration. Of particular interest was how these effects varied between public and commercial market segments and industrial sectors. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted on survey data from 915 small firms to test whether firms owned and managed by individuals who are ethnic minorities, female, and/or have less education will have relatively lower market penetration as perceptions of capital access barriers increase. The results indicate that the interaction of gender and education with capital access barriers, respectively, influences market penetration for firms in the public market. The ethnicity of the owner/manager directly influenced market penetration for service firms. The results suggest important implications for public policy.