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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 research studies the behavior choice of key actors in the construction supply chain and constructs a model which includes the benefit function of the government, contractors and owners, aiming at improving the coverage of green buildings.

In this paper, tripartite dynamic game is studied and simulated based on duplicate dynamic equation. The tripartite game under government intervention is rarely considered, and government punishment measures are seldom introduced into the research.

According to the simulation results, the practical insights in line with the development of green supply chain are put forward. Rewards and punishments affect the development of the supply chain. New technologies and new materials accelerate the development of green supply chain and then improve the coverage of green buildings.

This paper constructs a dynamic model based on complete information rationality, which is difficult to realize in practice, for information is incomplete and human rationality is limited.

In fact, the government has not issued a punishment document to introduce a new variable adjustment model.

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.

This study aims to reduce the construction safety accidents of prefabricated building (PB) projects, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of safety supervision by government departments, and provide theoretical reference for improving the safety supervision system of PB construction.

Considering the information asymmetry between government supervision departments and construction contractors and the interactive relationship between the two parties under bounded rationality, we propose an evolutionary game model for the construction safety dynamic supervision of PBs and analyze the evolutionary strategy of the game. The system dynamics (SD) method is used to simulate and analyze the evolutionary game process under a dynamic supervision strategy and the adjustment of external variables.

The cost difference between the government's strong and weak supervision, the construction contractor's additional expenditure for strengthening safety management, and other factors affect system stability. The government can dynamically adjust the penalties based on the construction contractor's subjective willingness to ignore safety management and further adjust their rate of change based on the completion of the supervision goals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of construction safety supervision.

This study makes contributions in two areas. Through a combination of SD and an evolutionary game, it provides new insights into the strategic choice of the main body related to PB construction safety. Additionally, considering the nonlinear characteristics of construction safety supervision, it provides useful universal suggestions for PB construction safety.

Owing to multiple superiorities to traditional counterparts, prefabricated construction (PC) has gained increasing attention worldwide. The development of PC projects reflects the effects of both policy supervision and PC practice, which aids the government in reasonably identifying the key issues of PC's promotion and rationally improving the policy deployment. However, existing studies fail to address this aspect, especially lacking quantitative exploration. This study explores the micro mechanism of PC's promotion, from the perspective of developing PC projects.

A tripartite evolutionary game model based on prospect theory of the government, developers and contractors is constructed. After rigorous theoretical deduction, this study adopts Changchun in China as a case city and collects the data using the Delphi technique, policy documents and literature analysis.

Results indicate that contractors are generally willing to implement PC projects and the government chooses to actively supervise PC's promotion. The negative investment behavior of developers is the main obstacle to promote PC in Changchun currently.

The conclusions are applicable to other comparable regions. This study is of value to promote PC with high efficiency and effect.

The tripartite evolutionary game model based on prospect theory proposed in this study is conducive to reveal the essence of PC's promotion. This is an important breakthrough in extant studies, with a broad applicability in the PC domain beyond China.

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.

Governments worldwide seek to optimize value in public project bids. Social procurement (SP) has become a global tool for achieving project goals. The purpose of this study is to assess the understanding of SP among contractors and identify its drivers to optimize the value associated with public projects.

A total of 15 major contractors were interviewed to obtain their views on SP, appreciate their current practices and identify the main drivers of SP in projects. A semistructured interview was used to gather relevant data. Neo-institutional theory is the lens of the study used to provide the focus of the research. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic data analysis technique.

The study found that SP is understood as corporate social responsibility and is not handled in a structured manner guided by policies or clearly defined procedures. Additionally, research has shown that compliance requirements, rather than value and goodwill, are the main inspiration for SP practices.

The study’s limitation is the fact that it was conducted in the context of Botswana and only used the interview technique as the solo data collection method. The other limitation is the lack of empirical literature on SP concerning the lack of SP policy in Botswana.

This study raises awareness of the concept of SP among contractors in Botswana and eases its implementation within the industry.

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.