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Government contractors operate under circumstances unmatched in the commercial marketplace. A significant factor for conducting business in that environment is the use of heavy regulations. Government regulations for defence contractors include such procurement requirements as cost accounting standards, cost limitations and cost exclusions as outlined in the Defense Contract Audit Manual, Federal Acquisitions Regulations and Defense Acquisition Regulations. Defense Contract Audit Agency auditors must perform all necessary audits and ascertain contractor compliance with these standards as part of their internal control review. While contractors maintain costly accounting systems for the sole purpose of reporting to the Government, frequently adverse audit opinions are presented resulting in adversarial relationship between the two parties. First, addresses some of the most significant issues that lead to the development of conflict between the Goverment auditors and contractors, then provides some recommendations which are expected to reduce tension and increase efficiency of audit operations.

The article examines the potential impact of FAR Subpart 3:10, Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct on the system for regulating defense procurement integrity. The article argues that the adoption of the new Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct will not change the already heavy emphasis placed on full compliance with criminal and civil statutes directed at protecting procurement integrity. The article also argues that the defense procurement integrity program should devote equal attention to adoption of non-criminal standards of conduct directed at assuring the impartiality and objectivity of contractor employees. Finally, the article argues that in order to rebuild public trust in contractor employees the FAR Council should require contractor employees who perform duties similar to full-time federal employees to comply with a new uniform set of non-criminal standards of conduct rules directed at assuring the impartiality and objectivity of contractor employees.

This paper evaluates an Air Force performance-based service contract against the contracts that were prescriptive in the past. Department of Defense mandated that all service contracts be performance-based by 2005. The goal of the paper is to determine whether this contract, after becoming performance-based, is achieving greater cost savings and better outcomes for government, contractor, and taxpayers. The paper assesses the contract performance standards and how they are measured. The authors analyze the language of the Statement of Work (SOW) before and after it became performance-based. The contractor’s performance is evaluated. Positive incentives are identified and described. Finally, the paper addresses risk assessment issues.

The scope of disaster impacts has become extensive. It is important that resources can be distributed to the needed places in time, and to prevent a second disaster. The appropriate usage of open contract to disaster management is important; therefore, this study aims to discuss the implication, possible problems and strategies of the current use of open contracts.

Content analysis was used to analyze the operation experiences from contract data collaterally. An in‐depth interview with contract participants was also applied to probe into more issues in practice.

The study targeted emergency supplies and services, focusing on three dimensions: regulation, contract preparation and contract execution, and found that: conflicts and problems exist between current major procurement and disaster management regulations; government must master open contract suppliers; items in the open contract must be concrete and specific; performance bond and default clause would only keep contractors away from any service; missing links are still among audit system, construction estimation, and construction inspection and acceptance in the current open contract system.

The results of this study can be applied to assist governments to review the current implications of open contract, and to construct better systems which meet the features and needs of emergency responses.

Open contract is a very important tool for saving lives during emergencies, although rarely discussed. This study explored current problems and strategies, and can be provided for better future system construction.

Acquisition of products and services from contractors consumes about a quarter of discretionary spending governmentwide and is a key function in many federal agencies. In fiscal year 2005 alone, federal government contracting involved over $388 billion. The work of the government is increasingly being performed by contractors, including in emergency and large-scale logistics operations such as hurricane response and recovery and the war in Iraq. Many agencies rely extensively on contractors to carry out their basic missions. The magnitude of the government's spending and dependence on contractors make it imperative that this function be performed as efficiently and effectively as possible. Yet, acquisition issues are heavily represented on GAO's list of government highrisk areas. In the 21st century, the government needs to reexamine and evaluate its strategic and tactical approaches to acquisition. To identify and discuss the key issues confronting the federal acquisition community, the Comptroller General hosted a forum in July 2006 that brought together acquisition experts from inside and outside the government. Participants shared their insights on challenges and opportunities for improving federal acquisition in an environment of increasing reliance on contractors and severe fiscal constraint.

In prior work, GAO found that contractors were paid billions of dollars in award fees regardless of acquisition outcomes. In December 2007, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued guidance aimed at improving the use of award fee contracts. GAO was asked to (1) identify agencies’ actions to revise or develop award fee policies and guidance to reflect OMB guidance, (2) assess the consistency of current practices with the new guidance, and (3) determine the extent agencies are collecting, analyzing, and sharing information on award fees. GAO reviewed the Departments of defense (DOD), Energy (DOE), Health and Human Services (HHS), and Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-agencies that constituted over 95 percent of the dollars spent on award fee contracts in fiscal year 2008.

This paper aims to analyse the factors affecting the performance of large construction projects in Sri Lanka. The causes, impacts and mitigations in association with the critical factors are explored and discussed.

The research focuses on the evaluation and perspectives of clients and contractors of large projects in Sri Lanka. Combined quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in this research. Initially, a questionnaire survey was conducted with clients and contractors involved in large projects to evaluate the factors affecting the performance of projects and to identify the ten most critical factors. Interviews with the clients and contractors of three large projects were conducted to examine the causes and impacts of the critical factors and the approaches used to mitigate them.

Significant differences in the factors were observed for more than 40 per cent of the total factors under study, the contractors assigning more weight to most of the factors than the clients. The study identified nine internal factors and one external factor as the critical factors. Of these, seven were related to the contractors, which suggested that the contractors have greater roles in defining performance. Lack of management and technical skills of the parties involved, human capacity, lack of understanding and knowledge of the local context, changes in government policies and political interference were identified as significant causes of the critical factors.

The study analysed the factors affecting the performance of large projects in Sri Lanka, which, at the time of research, had just ended a 26-year-long civil war and was pushing the construction of large projects to be competitive. The challenges faced in this effort were explored as lessons learnt that might improve the efficiency and effectiveness of infrastructure development in Sri Lanka. The combined quantitative and qualitative methods applied in this study are expected to provide new insights in the project performance research, especially the interviews of the critical factors to gain an understanding on how the factors occurred and manifested themselves in real projects. The findings are, however, expected to be applicable to other developing countries that are currently aggressively developing their large infrastructure.

U.S. and E.U. public and defense procurement rules require large prime contractors to promote subcontracts to small businesses, a.k.a. small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Under the U.S. Small Business Act, large firms encourage subcontracting through publicity, subcontracting plans, and “good faith” efforts to achieve subcontracting goals. However, processoriented measures failed to guarantee definitive results. In contrast, E.U. and member governments can hold large firms accountable to stricter subcontracting standards (often sweetened by incentives). With the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010, the U.S. is trying accountability measures now. Therefore, large contractors must plan for definitive subcontracting commitments in both markets.

The construction programmes of developing countries have constituted a significant part of the international construction market. However, while international contractors seek to exploit these opportunities, the host nations also wish to develop their construction industries over time. This paper shows how conflicting objectives of international contractors and host countries can be correlated for mutual benefit. It outlines strategies adopted by international construction enterprises and contrasts the approaches they adopt in industrialised countries with those in developing ones. It then compares the objectives of international construction enterprises to those of host countries. It uses Singapore's experience to illustrate likely future developments in the construction industries of emerging countries. Finally, it offers suitable approaches that international and local construction enterprises, and governments, should adopt at various stages of development of host countries' construction industries.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative awareness and influence of stakeholders on sustainable residential property development in Lagos, Nigeria. This is with a view to identifying the key stakeholders pertinent to enhancing sustainable residential property development in the country.

Data on awareness and influence of stakeholders on decisions to adopt sustainable residential property were elicited from residential property users, building contractors, property investors, estate surveyors and valuers and government regulatory agencies in Lagos residential property sector. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and analysed using mean item score and analysis of variance.

The result showed that the government regulatory agencies and the building professionals were aware of sustainable buildings, as mean scores measuring their awareness were higher than 2.5 on a scale of 1–5. The level of awareness of users was, however, low (mean score of 2.39). The users and the government regulatory agencies were identified by the stakeholders as being most influential on their decisions to adopt sustainable residential property.

Findings from this study indicate that there is need to promote the users and government regulatory agencies’ activities on sustainable residential property development as the activities of these stakeholders have higher influence on sustainable residential property development decisions in the study area.

This study particularly examines the interrelationships between the activities of stakeholders in sustainable residential property development in Nigeria. This has not been adequately studied in extant literature.