Changing Bureaucratic Behavior: Acquisition Reform in the United States Army

Abstract : Recent efforts to "reinvent" government have extended to the acquisition system of the Department of Defense (DoD). In 1994, then Secretary of Defense William Perry directed the military services (Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps) to begin the process of reinventing their acquisition systems and policies. An important element of the "Perry Initiatives" was the elimination of all military specifications (milspecs) and standards from use in military acquisition. Traditional milspecs and standards were to be replaced with performance-based specifications. The Department of the Army (Army) took the lead in implementing the new policy, directing its employees to discontinue using all milspecs and standards. By late 1994, however, Army leadership found resistance to this policy from within the acquisition work force. Although the directive appeared clear-eliminate all milspecs and standards from use-Army leadership noted that milspecs and standards were still finding their way into requests for proposals (RFPs) and statements of work (SOWs) at the core of the acquisition process. Having adopted the initiatives and seeking to implement them fully, Army leadership was interested in learning why the rank and file of the acquisition work force was not embracing the reforms. In addition, the Army was interested in identifying ways to "incentivize" or improve implementation of milspec and standard reform.

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