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Institutional structures of professional career paths often support breadwinner–homemaker families, with a stay at home wife available full time to support the professional (and children), so the professional can devote complete energy and time to developing a career. This research examines how two partners in the same narrowly structured, fast track occupational culture such as those occurring for dual military officer couples shape how women and men negotiate decision making and life events. Data from interviews with 23 dual U.S. Navy officer couples build upon Becker and Moen’s (1999) scaling back notions. With both spouses in these careers, placing limits on work is extremely difficult due to fast track cultures that demand higher status choices and structures that formally do not reliably consider collocations. Trading off occurs, but with distress due to the unique demands on two partners in the fast track culture, which means career death for some. Two partners in fast track careers may not yet have given up on two careers as many peers may have, but they lose a great deal, including time together and their desired number of children. But they ultimately posit individual choice rather than focusing on structural change. The pressured family life resulting is likely similar to that for partners in other narrowly structured, fast track cultures such as in law firms and academia.

This paper honors the breadth of some of March’s key ideas on organizations by applying them to the development of amphibious operations in the United States. The development of amphibious operations highlights, in part, March’s appreciation for little ideas, the importance of ordinary actions as opposed to great men, and the larger societal trends in which evolutionary organizational change is nested. The persistence of ordinary men and a series of little ideas that accumulated for decades prior to the far more celebrated 1919–1939 interwar period established the intellectual and organizational foundation that made the interwar innovation period possible. We use this case not only as an example of how many of March’s ideas are relevant to a given case, but also to demonstrate how extending March’s ideas to different kinds of institutions and organizations might be useful for future scholars and for organizational scholarship.

Recently, leasing has been prominent in the press due to the Air Force’s recent ill-fated attempt to obtain the use of Boeing re-fueling tankers. Forgotten is that, in the early 1980’s, a highly controversial Navy long-term leasing program of Maritime Prepositioned Ships had a different result. However, an unintended consequence of the Navy’s success was that future government leases were practically eliminated. This research examines the issues and parties involved in this unprecedented creative and innovative leasing program for ships used by the Navy’s Military Sealift Command. While the analysis concludes that the Navy’s leasing program was successful and cost effective, laws and policies were changed so that long-term leasing is no longer viable for the strategic financing of military requirements. The case is presented here that existing laws and regulations should be reconsidered so that leased military resources can once again be used to provide and maintain national security.

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of contract management process maturity assessments in the US Navy using a process capability maturity model. The maturity model is used to benchmark an organization’s contract management process maturity and to use the assessment results to develop a road map for implementing process improvement as well as knowledge-sharing initiatives.

This is survey-based research on benchmarking contract management processes in the US Navy. A web-based assessment tool was deployed to US Navy contracting officers located at aeronautical systems, sea systems, and logistics support contracting agencies. The assessment tool consists of survey items related to the use of contracting best practices. The survey responses are then used to calculate the agency’s contract management process maturity level.

The benchmarking results reflected higher maturity levels in the pre-award contracting processes (Procurement Planning, Solicitation Planning, and Source Selection), while lower maturity levels were reflected in the post-award contracting processes (Contract Administration and Contract Closeout). The research findings related to process capability enablers also reflected higher mean scores for the pre-award processes and lower mean scores for the post-award processes. These maturity levels and process capability enabler scores reflect the extent of the implementation of contracting best practices within the Navy contracting agencies.

This research uses a purposeful sampling approach designed to acquire data on organizational contract management processes. The assessment survey was administered only to qualified Navy contracting officers. The Navy contracting agencies are responsible for procuring billions of dollars in supplies and services in support of the Navy mission. Although the assessed contracting agencies procure different types of systems, supplies, and services, the contract management processes used are common to all Navy, Army, Air Force, and other US federal government agencies. The conclusions based on the analysis of these benchmarking assessments may be applicable to Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies.

The findings suggest that benchmarking can be effective in measuring and improving contracting process capability within the Navy. Benchmarking contracting processes can have far-reaching effects throughout the DoD. The Under Secretary of Defense’s has mandated initiatives related to improving both pre- and post-award contracting processes. The use of these benchmarking assessments can be instrumental in tracking the achievements of these process improvement initiatives. Additionally, the US Congress is leading the push for auditability in procurement operations. By benchmarking and improving its contracting processes, the DoD will be winning the battle toward integrity, accountability, and transparency of its financial operations.

Benchmarking contracting processes can also have far-reaching effects in society. Many governments are focussing on integrity, accountability, and transparency in public procurement. International organizations such as Transparency International (TI) have identified process capability and process integrity as key for reducing the potential for procurement-related fraud, waste, and abuse. Additionally, NATO member countries and partner nations are focussing on the value of assessing and improving procurement processes for strengthening transparency and accountability. The value of benchmarking and improving contracting processes is gaining much attention in global public procurement agencies as they strive for accountability, integrity, and transparency in their governance processes.

There are multiple reports on deficiencies in DoD’s contract management processes, identifying poor contract planning, and Contract Administration as just some of the critically deficient areas. In response, the DoD is increasing its emphasis on developing its workforce competence through education initiatives. However, very little attention is being paid to benchmarking contract management processes. This research reflects the value of benchmarking DoD’s contract management process maturity and using the results for implementing process improvement initiatives. Using process benchmarking data, agencies can identify process improvement initiatives that will ensure government tax dollars are spent in the most effective and efficient ways.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze an ongoing fraud case in the US Navy involving the procurement of ship-husbanding services. The fraud acts will be analyzed from three perspectives–contract life cycle, internal controls and fraud schemes.

A data search was conducted to collect publicly available documents issued by the US Department of Justice (DOJ). A content analysis was used to analyze the fraud acts by aligning them with the contracting phase, internal control component and fraud scheme category.

The majority of the fraud occurred in the contracting phases of contract administration, followed by procurement planning and then source selection. The majority of the fraud occurred because of internal control component weaknesses in the control environment followed by information and communications. The majority of the fraud was aligned with the fraud scheme of collusion, followed by billing, cost and pricing.

Because this is an ongoing investigation, additional DOJ information will become available and provide additional insight on the contracting phase, internal control component and fraud scheme.

The analysis suggests that the Navy’s lack of trained personnel, capable processes and effective internal controls result in the increased vulnerability to procurement fraud in its husbanding support services program.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze fraud through the lens of auditability theory, specifically by the contracting phase and internal control component. Public agencies can enhance fraud detection and deterrence efforts by understanding how weaknesses in contracting processes and internal controls may increase an organization’s vulnerabilities for fraudulent activities.

This research examines how the cost performance of defense contracts varies among the Air Force, Army, Navy, and the Department of Defense (DoD) and among five major defense contractors: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. Data for these analyses was extracted from the recently established Defense Acquisition Management Information Retrieval (DAMIR) web-based interface for management information on Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAP). Note that, in addition to the three military services, MDAP data is also reported for DoD itself.

Data analysis indicates that the Navy ranks last among the military services and DoD in cost performance for MDAP contracts, while the Air Force ranks best. Of the defense contractors, Raytheon ranks last in cost performance and General Dynamics is next to last. Furthermore, the Navy contracts more frequently with Raytheon and General Dynamics than do the other services or DoD. Explanatory factors for poor cost performance may be due to factors such as the Navy's lack of oversight, the quality of the acquisition workforce, the defense contractors’ cost inefficiency, ethical lapses, or weak corporate governance, or combinations of these factors.

In addition, the schedule performance data was also identified. Tests of statistical significance on the schedule performance difference generally yield no results except for one relationship which indicates that the Navy is more likely to have Acquisition Program Baseline (APB) schedule breaches than its counterparts. Finally, cost performance data is examined for statistically significant differences between the two major categories of defense contracts: fixed-price contracts and cost-plus contracts. However, no significant findings were discovered.

Past theorizing and empirical work suggest that long-standing strategic leaders generate harmful attention and information-processing effects in their organizations, which in turn impair organizational learning and performance. In contrast, our argument is that longevity and its attendant inertia foster useful transformational and strategic persistence for organizations pursuing stretch goals. Through attentional vigilance and restricted focus, inertia may create the cognitive profile necessary for effective learning when organizations pursue the seemingly impossible. We empirically examine our ideas in the context of the French royal navy and the naval battles it had with the British in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. More specifically, we focus on two distinct but related stretch periods during which the French royal navy was tasked with building a powerful naval force and using it to gain naval supremacy over Great Britain. Given its exceptionally weak starting position at the beginning of the two studied periods and its desire to displace the established and advantaged navy of the era, the French had a lofty task. Our results are supportive of the stability argument, with leader longevity and inertia being positive for outcomes.

The weapon system of The Navy is the small quantity producing system on multiple kinds. It is consisted of various equipment and the subordinate parts of those which can repair the damaged part. The operating procedure concerning warship's repair parts managed under these systems is as follows. Firstly, if demand of repair parts occurs from warship which is the operating unit of weapon, then the Fleet(the repair & supply support battalion) is in charge of dealing with these requests. If certain request from warship is beyond the battalion's capability, it is delivered directly to the Logistic Command. In short, the repair and supply support system of repair parts can be described as the multi-level support system. The various theoretical researches on inventory management of Navy's repair parts and simulation study that reflects reality in detail have been carried out simultaneously. However, the majority of existing research has been conducted on aircraft and tank's repairable items, in that, the studies is woefully deficient in the area concerning Navy's inventory management. For that reason, this paper firstly constructs the model of consumable items that is frequently damaged reflecting characteristics of navy's repair parts inventory management using ARENA simulation. After that, this paper is trying to propose methodology to analyze optimal inventory level of each supply unit through OptQuest, the optimization program of ARENA simulation.

The purpose of this paper is to contest Edwards et al.’s (2002) findings that resistance to the introduction of double-entry bookkeeping and the form that it took when implemented by the British Government in the mid-nineteenth century was the result of ideological conflict between the privileged landed aristocracy and the rising merchant middle class.

The study draws upon a collection of documents preserved as part of the Grigg Family Papers located in London and the Thomson Papers held in the Mitchell Library in Sydney. It also draws on evidence contained within the British National Archive, the National Maritime Museum and British Parliamentary Papers which has been overlooked by previous studies of the introduction of DEB.

Conflict and delays in the adoption of double-entry bookkeeping were not primarily the product of “ideological” differences between the influential classes. Instead, this study finds that conflict was the result of a complex amalgam of class interests, ideology, personal antipathy, professional intolerance and ambition. Newly discovered evidence recognises the critical, largely forgotten, work of John Deas Thomson in developing a double-entry bookkeeping system for the Royal Navy and the importance of Sir James Graham’s determination that matters of economy would be emphasised in the Navy’s accounting.

This study establishes that crucial to the ultimate implementation of double-entry bookkeeping was the passionate, determined support of influential champions with strong liberal beliefs, most especially John Deas Thomson and Sir James Graham. Prominence was given to economy in government.