Search results

The aim of the paper is to identify and review the impact and challenges of new contractual arrangements on UK military procurement and other limited or oligopolistic markets.

The unit of analysis is the large-scale procurement programme. Two cases of major military platforms (naval and air defence) examine through-life maintenance or “contracting for availability” and build theory on procuring complex performance (PCP). Propositions are developed from the literature then tested and extended from the case analysis, supported by 35 interviews from buyer and supplier representatives.

Examining UK military platform procurement reveals a perspective not present in fast moving high volume supply chains. In oligopolistic markets such as defence, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) represents a market of one, seeking ambitious and non-incremental innovation from the prime contractor during the procurement process. The new contractual arrangements show an increasing shift in responsibility to the prime contractor who coordinates service support and supply chain incentivisation over extended, often multi-decade platform lifecycles.

The cases were conducted separately and later compared. Whilst based on defence sources, the paper concludes with general recommendations for all public-private complex procurements and seeks to explore other industry sectors as part of further research into PCP.

Examined from a theoretical and practical perspective, the cases reveal the challenges facing procurement in major public-private projects. The changing role identified reflects extended timescales and the quasi-market military procurement environment, compounded by current economic and politically charged conditions. Procurement by default increasingly plays a new shaping role in large-scale programme management driven by outcome-based contracting. Customers such as the MOD must re-evaluate their role under these new contractual arrangements, providing leadership and engaging with future contracting capability and innovation.

This paper aims to provide a strategic analysis of firms at the lowest hierarchical levels of the defence industry.

This paper presents the main results of an exploratory, multiple-case study that analyses the current strategy drivers and their views about the future ones, and their impact at the lowest hierarchical levels of the defence industry in Spain.

This investigation develops and analyses a contingency model regarding the strategy impact and effects of firms’ drivers and clients, both mediated by the strategy players because of their huge impact on the defence industry. The research model focuses on the internal relations between technical and commercial activities due to the cause and effect of their capabilities. Simultaneously, pull and push mechanisms boost firms’ capabilities and requirements to provide strategic foresight.

Ministries of Defence (MoDs) and prime contractors will remain mediating players in the near future even with further implications for the competition of Defence Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB) firms. It implies that firms and MoDs must maintain a close relation and implement more flexible practices, such as open innovation, property rights or new commercialization schemes.

This study offers insights related to the specific applications and the necessity of commercial and technological areas alignment of these firms for the future.

The paper's aim is to evaluate the changing patterns of defence requirements and their implications on supply chains and relationships within the UK defence industry.

The paper builds a case study on the UK defence industry comprising 22 face‐to‐face interviews with senior management from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and major first tier suppliers, as well as senior officers in the British armed forces.

The results suggest that there are major changes currently taking place that have major impacts on defence supply relationships. The authors find a consensus in the industry concerning a shift towards through‐life management (TLM), where major equipment platforms are kept in service for several decades. TLM is widely acknowledged as requiring much closer partnerships in the defence supply chain, in which suppliers assume much greater responsibilities in areas such as in‐service support and maintenance. Yet the findings with MoD and suppliers reveal different perceptions of the feasibility and practical implications of the proposed changes.

Product‐service specific capabilities need to be developed especially in areas such as accurate lifecycle costing. The development of integrated supply partnerships requires greater emphasis on openness, risk and reward sharing, trust and long‐term commitment in supplier relationships. There is also a need for early supplier involvement to ensure not only design for manufacture, but design for maintainability and logistics, instigated and managed by the customer (i.e. MoD).

The analysis demonstrates the importance of adopting a through‐life perspective when considering industrial contexts characterised by very long product lifecycles. This study shows that a through‐life perspective creates a blurring of the boundary between customers and suppliers, and increases long‐term supplier responsibility. This gives rise to new considerations, such as sophisticated risk and rewards sharing mechanisms, design for maintainability, and technology insertion.

States that the end of the Cold War created expectations of a peace dividend. Analyses and critically evaluates the set of myths about this dividend which emerged. Reviews the response of defence industries to disarmament and provides evidence from the UK.

The paper seeks to consider the basis on which a management corporation can represent original and subsequent purchasers of units in strata developments in a representative action against developers; the significance of unit owners' share values when courts award compensation; vicarious liability; and developers' use of the “independent contractor” defence in relation to its liability for defects in common property.

The paper analyses cases from several common law jurisdictions, with a focus on Singapore Court of Appeal decisions.

The paper highlights the problems posed as a result of the doctrine of privity in relation to management corporations' claims against developers for defects in common property; the implications of unit holders' share values; and the circumstances in which developers can avail themselves of the independent contractor defence.

The paper will be instructive to developers, contractors, management corporations and both original and subsequent purchasers of units in strata developments.

The paper brings to focus the importance of due consideration by the management corporation before it commences a representative action on behalf of the subsidiary proprietors; and also highlights procedures and/or legislation that need to be implemented, failing which there may be financial implications that can render a “successful” litigation against the developer a pyrrhic victory.

In Spain contract auditing has been applied since 1988 to determine the final cost of defense procurement contracts. In this respect, the Spanish Department of Defense takes the US methodology as a reference model, and therefore it may be useful to study the degree of convergence between the two models. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the degree to which the US contract auditing model for the procurement of defense materiel has influenced the system applied in Spain. Accordingly, the comparative method is used to highlight the main features of the contract auditing models used by the Spanish and the US Departments of Defense. The results obtained show that the methodology used by Spain is not an original approach, but that there is only a low degree of convergence with the US model.

The central aim of this paper is to link the competitive performance of small, high technology defence firms to their ability to adapt to changes in the procurement process. The paper draws upon an extensive research study focused on small high technology defence firms in the UK. Firms in the sample range from 5 to 200 employees, and £50,000 to £10 million sales turnover. The empirical analysis of the ability to create and sustain competitive advantages focuses on strategic determinants, and those inter‐organisational variables that influence the performance of small firms in tendering for defence sub‐contracts. The theoretical underpinnings of the study are based on Porter’s strategic management framework which suggests a close relationship between industry structure, strategy and performance. An organisation’s performance is measured by the percentage success rate of tendering for defence sub‐contract work for the period 1995 through to mid‐1996.

The central aim of this paper is to link the competitive performance of small defence firms to their ability to adapt to changes in the Ministry of Defence procurement process favouring more European collaboration. The paper draws upon an extensive research study focused on small, high technology defence firms in the UK. The empirical analysis on the ability to create and sustain competitive advantages focuses on strategic determinants, and those inter‐organisational variables that influence the performance of small firms in tendering for defence sub‐contracts on major European offset programmes. The theoretical underpinnings of the study are based on a strategic positioning approach to bidding, which is underpinned by the positioning school of strategy that grew out of Porter’s conceptual work on competition, a major theme of which is the proposed relationship between industry structure, strategy and performance. The authors’ methodology was to use percentage success rate as a measure of success for the period 1998 through to mid‐1999.

Foreign military sales agreements amounted to over 19.5 billion dollars in fiscal year 1982, while the US actually delivered $9 billion in weapons. The US and the Soviet Union are the largest arms suppliers in the world, with about 75 per cent of the global export market. France, and then Great Britain, follow with 12 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively. Italy and Israel also export significant dollar amounts of weapons. There is considerable public debate over the wisdom of US participation in this market. Of particular concern is the increased availability of highly sophisticated weapons systems in third world nations.

Business‐to‐business, supply chain relationships within sustained monopolies, such as those within UK defence procurement, have received scant attention by management researchers. This paper describes the results from a substantial, exploratory research project that used Williamson’s organisations failure framework as a theoretical model. Surprisingly, it revealed that many issues surrounding supply chain management implementation were similar to those found in “normal” markets and that it played an important part in reducing the inherently negative effects of monopolistic relationships. The research sheds new and useful light on the dynamics of this unusual busin