Measuring Small Business Participation in Air Force Contracting: The Impact of Acquisition Reform

Abstract

Congress has mandated the Air Force to reform and streamline its acquisition procedures while promoting participation by small business contractors. Reports on the federal government as a whole suggest that the acquisition reforms have had a negative effect on small business participation, with a declining number of small businesses receiving contract awards. A causal regression model is used to determine that the Air Force has actually increased the number of small businesses receiving contract awards over the past thirteen years and has maintained a steady stream of new small businesses into that group. Variables are tested to determine their effect on small business participation. Those tests reveal that number of contract awards and number of government-wide agency contract orders placed are useful for predictive purposes. The research also identifies two performance measurements for the Air Force small business office: total number of small business contractors and total number of new small business contractors.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 2004
Accession Number
ADA422928

Entities

People

  • William C. Pike

Organizations

  • Air Force Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Cyber
  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Commerce
  • Congress
  • Contractors
  • Contracts
  • Employment
  • Government Procurement
  • Governments
  • Information Science
  • Information Systems
  • Law
  • Management Personnel
  • National Governments
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Public Administration

Fields of Study

  • Business

Readers

  • Defense Financial Management and Audit.
  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Regression Analysis.