 When Australian defence procurement goes wrong: Improving outcomes in a troubled contractual environmentJenny Stewart and Tony Ablong The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 2013, vol. 24, issue 2, 238-254 Abstract: Defence procurement is a notoriously difficult and often controversial field of public management. In Australia, problems with schedule and budget overruns have been addressed through business process reforms aimed at tightening control and improving professionalism. However, studies of complex contracting in other contexts show the importance of relational factors of trust, collaboration and risk-sharing. These factors are not encouraged by the predominantly transactionally based contractual environment of Defence. Based on a detailed examination of three case studies, we suggest that there is a disjunct between the types of controls that are applied by Defence and the requirements of delivering complex, long-term projects involving multiple stakeholders. The need for both improved flexibility as well as heightened accountability is evident. We argue that balancing these values involves processes that encourage, rather than discourage, communication, risk-sharing and trust. Keywords: Australia; contracts; contractualism; defence; flexibility; procurement; public–private partnerships; trust (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:24:y:2013:i:2:p:238-254 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The Economic and Labour Relations Review |
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