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Services acquisition in the US Department of Defense (DoD) has continued to increase in scope and dollars in the past decade with over $200 billion spent for services in 2008. In this empirical study, we conducted a web-based survey to collect primary data on management practices in services acquisition in the U. S. Navy and studied such areas as contract characteristics, management approaches, and program management issues. The paper presents summary results of our survey, implications of current management practices, and recommendations useful for improving services acquisition in the Navy.

This paper aims to investigate how a Chinese firm’s strategic orientation impact its knowledge acquisition from its foreign alliance partners through governance mechanisms used in the Sino-foreign alliance partnership.

This research first proposes an integrated model which links a firm’s strategic orientations (entrepreneurial and market orientations), governance mechanism (contract and trust controls), and its knowledge acquisition together. Then, this research collected data from 198 Chinese firms involved in Sino-foreign alliances to test the conceptual model.

For entrepreneurial-oriented alliance firms, a moderate level of contract and a high level of trust are the most efficient uses of control mechanisms for Chinese firms’ knowledge acquisition. In comparison, for market-oriented alliance firms, both contract and trust control mechanisms should be used at the moderate level to achieve maximum knowledge acquisition from their foreign partners.

By introducing a new antecedent for the choice of control mechanisms in the context of Sino-foreign alliance relationships, this study empirically finds a non-linear relationship between contract control and knowledge acquisition and confirms the significant role of trust in facilitating knowledge acquisition between alliance partners from the perspective of alliance firms in emerging markets.

The purpose of this working paper is to highlight the challenges and associated risks Federal contracting officers face while conducting business under commercially-based contracting legislation and, with concurrent reductions in the acquisition workforce, the potential risks these changes place on the taxpayer. The researcher's thorough review of published articles, along with collegiate discussions with prominent practitioners and academics indicates that the Federal Government may be exposed to increased risks due to recent commercial-practice legislation and structural changes in the acquisition work force. The past decade-long wave of acquisition work-force reductions and commercially inspired acquisition reforms has created a responsive and progressive business environment. Yet, it has done so at the cost of the Federal government becoming less "engaged" in key oversight and management functions. This disengagement may be exposing Federal contracting officers and taxpayers to greater financial, programmatic and performance risks.

This study aims to empirically investigate the role of contracts in tacit knowledge acquisition in research and development (R&D) alliances. By combining the perspectives of sensemaking and transaction cost economics (TCE), this study proposes a model about the mechanisms through which shared goals and contract completeness jointly affect tacit knowledge acquisition.

This study adopted a quantitative design and used the questionnaire survey method to collect data. The authors finally collected data on 196 R&D alliance samples in China. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

There is strong empirical support that contract completeness has a positive effect on shared goals and that shared goals have a positive effect on tacit knowledge acquisition. Meanwhile, contract completeness weakens the positive effect of shared goals on tacit knowledge acquisition. Therefore, this study reveals that contract completeness has an inverted U-shaped effect on tacit knowledge acquisition.

The findings suggest that managers should consider both the psychological and rational effects of contract governance simultaneously, thus recognizing the importance of a moderate level of contract completeness for tacit knowledge acquisition in R&D alliances.

This study enhances the current understanding of contract governance by integrating the sensemaking and TCE perspectives. The findings provide a possible explanation of how contracts affect tacit knowledge acquisition in R&D alliances. The authors expand the research on contract governance and alliance knowledge acquisition by revealing the inverted U-shaped relationship between contract governance and tacit knowledge acquisition.

Federal agencies can directly purchase more than 8 million commercial products and services through the General Services Administration’s (GSA) multiple award schedules (MAS) contracts. Over the past 10 years, MAS contract sales have increased dramatically--with sales jumping from $4 billion to $32 billion. In addition to simplifying the procurement process, the MAS program is designed to take advantage of the government’s significant aggregate buying power. While GSA seeks to negotiate best pricing for its MAS contracts by analyzing vendor-provided information--such as discounts given to other customers and recent sales data for the same or similar items--past reports have found that GSA has not always used pricing tools effectively and that management controls for better ensuring fair and reasonable pricing had been reduced. This report discusses GSA’s process for negotiating most favored customer prices for MAS contracts and its efforts to improve the overall quality of negotiations. Contract negotiators at the four MAS acquisition centers that GAO reviewed use a variety of tools for obtaining most favored customer pricing--that is, the prices vendors offer their best customers. However, the GAO analysis of GSA’s review of selected fiscal year 2004 MAS contract files found that nearly 60 percent lacked the documentation needed to establish clearly that the prices were effectively negotiated. Specifically, the contract documentation did not establish that negotiated prices were based on accurate, complete, and current vendor information; adequate price analyses; and reasonable price negotiations. GSA’s efforts to ensure most favored customer pricing have been hindered by the significant decline in the use of pre-award and postaward audits of pre-award pricing information, two independent pricing tools that have helped GSA avoid or recover hundreds of millions of dollars in excessive pricing. In fiscal year 1995, GSA conducted 154 pre-award audits; by 2004 the number of pre-award audits fell to 40. Postaward audits--which resulted in an average annual recovery of $18 million in the early 1990s--were discontinued in 1997 when GSA revised its MAS contract audit policies to increase the use of pre-award audits--an increase that has not materialized. In March 2003, GSA established the Acquisition Quality Measurement and Improvement Program, initiating the use of prenegotiation panels and postaward quality reviews of contracts. However, the effectiveness of these initiatives has been limited due to insufficient oversight. For example, three of the MAS acquisition centers that GAO visited had not reported the results of their 2003 prenegotiation panels--information needed by management to identify problems and make needed improvements. Moreover, the fourth acquisition center--which accounted for about 56 percent of the fiscal year 2004 MAS sales--has yet to hold a panel. While the postaward quality reviews--the second program initiative--have identified deficiencies in contract file documentation, they did not determine the underlying causes of these deficiencies or prescribe actions needed to address them. As a result of these weaknesses, GSA cannot be assured that fair and reasonable prices have been negotiated for its MAS contracts.

The fear of receiving a bid protest is said to affect acquisition strategies, yet it has not been empirically explored. Based on the Public Value Framework and interviews with contracting personnel, this research tests a model of antecedents to and consequences of the fear of a protest. Survey data was obtained from a sample of 350 contracting personnel. The fear of protest is mitigated by having sufficient procurement lead time and by source selection experience, and increased by protest risk. Fear of protest increases compromised technical evaluations, added procurement lead time, and transaction costs, while it decreases contracting officer authority and is associated with source selection method inappropriateness. Compromised technical evaluations, in turn, decrease contractor performance while contracting officer authority increases contractor performance. Thus, findings suggest that, indeed, the tail is wagging the dog. The research concludes with several managerial implications, study limitations and future research directions.

Federal agencies are relying increasingly on contractors to perform their missions. With hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent each year on goods and services, it is essential that federal acquisition be handled in an efficient, effective, and accountable manner. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), however--as well as other accountability organizations, inspectors general, and the agencies themselves--continue to identify systemic weaknesses in key areas of acquisition. In fact, the acquisition function at several agencies has been on GAO's high-risk list, which identifies areas in the federal government with greater vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. In January 2005, we added interagency contracting to this list. Far too often, the result of poor acquisitions has been an inability to obtain quality goods and services on time and at a fair price. We can no longer afford such outcomes. Given current fiscal demands and the fiscal challenges we are likely to face in the 21st century, the federal government must improve its ability to acquire goods and services in a cost-effective manner. GAO developed this framework to enable high-level, qualitative assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of the acquisition function at federal agencies. Such assessments can help senior agency executives identify areas needing greater management attention, and enable accountability organizations (including GAO) to identify areas requiring more focused follow-up work. The framework consists of four interrelated cornerstones that our work has shown are essential to an efficient, effective, and accountable acquisition process: (1) organizational alignment and leadership, (2) policies and processes, (3) human capital, and (4) knowledge and information management. The framework supports an integrated evaluation approach, but each of these cornerstones can stand alone so users of this framework may tailor evaluations to an agency's specific needs.

The federal government purchased goods and services valued at approximately $100 billion from small businesses in FY 2003, which was up from previous years. Moreover, in FY 2003, the federal government exceeded its small business contracting goal of 23 percent. Despite such achievements, implementation of the acquisition reforms enacted in the 1990s has limited small businesses’ access to the federal procurement market. Federal agencies have, for instance, not met their goals for women, minorities, or veterans, and contract bundling and purchase cards may restrict small business opportunities. Meanwhile, both judicial actions and a reduction in the number of acquisition workers complicate matters. This paper discusses each of these issues and offers five recommendations that, if fully implemented, should ensure a brighter future for small businesses in the federal government marketplace.

For decades, cost growth in major military weapon system programs has been problematic. The result is a multitude of studies documenting internally focused causes of Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition cost growth and a spawning of acquisition reforms that have provided little relief to the problem. The missing components of these prior analyses are the larger economic and political factors that contribute to cost growth. This study analyzes cost growth in major DoD development and procurement contracts through a holistic political-economy construct including the effect of the political party of the President and Congress, and the liberal-conservative record of the Armed Services Committees. These political-economy constructs in both development contracts and procurement contracts are found to be more robust.

Defense acquisition programs are plagued by surging delays and cost overruns. In particular, contract management of defense acquisition programs has been identified as 'high risk' - and threatening to project results. This article examines how contracts, as legal mechanisms, may be disruptive and obstruct cooperation between the DoD and contractors. The main observation this article makes is that tensions between the norms set forth in contracts and other non-legal norms can become a major reason for problems in defense procurement. It explains why these tensions may undermine cooperative behavior between contractors and the DoD and can become a source of disappointing acquisition program results. A framework is provided for identifying such tensions, and contract design principles are proposed to enhance cooperation and eliminate these tensions when drafting contracts for defense acquisition and other complex programs.