Answer To: Assignment Instructions Instructions: Using a minimum of 7 credible sources, with at least 4 sources...
Sunabh answered on Jan 20 2021
Running Head: GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING 1
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING 2
GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Methodology 3
Findings and Analysis 4
Recommendations 9
Conclusion 10
References 11
Introduction
Government contracting is an emerging term, which simply implies the outsourcing of projects from government. In other words, a privately owned company or organisation produces goods and services according to the outsourcing contracts given by government agencies. The major reason behind the adoption of this strategy was to bolster the production and efficiency of local bureaucrats and on the other hand, it would direct some pressure from the government agencies.
Further, government contracting forced vendors to supply best quality products and smaller governments were also engaged in the large-scale production of goods and services. However, with the passage of time, certain drawbacks and negative outcomes of this strategy were being analysed. This article will focus upon such drawbacks that were associated with this strategy. Further, efforts will be made in order to provide optimistic recommendations, which would help to improvise the process and optimize the positive outcomes.
Methodology
In order to present this paper critical review of the selected research and scholarly articles was done. Overall, seven peer reviewed articles were selected using the university database and those were critically analysed. The key words such as ‘Government contracting’, ‘privatization’, ‘social services’ were fed into the university’s database search bar, which resulted into 4675 results. Further, several filters were applied in order to narrow down the results such as English language and peer reviewed only, which resulted into 380 articles.
In order to further narrow down the research, another filter ‘full text only’ was applied and 20 results were obtained. Out of these 20 articles, four peer-reviewed articles were chosen that were appropriate for government contracting. Other sources such as Google scholar were then explored with the similar strategy in order to retrieve rest of three peer-reviewed articles, then all seven articles were analysed and findings are mentioned below.
Findings and Analysis
Government contracting has been increasing with the passage of time and it has reached to a significant height within the last decade. It is simply a process where government agencies may outsource the production of goods and services to private companies. Contractors are therefore, employed by the government if they win the contract or tender that would be made available for bidding. In this process, lowest possible bidder is selected for the outsourcing irrespective of their sizes and capabilities. Schick (2011) suggested that there exists both pros and cons of this process, as a result of which academic writers have been divided between the ones that support contracting while others presents some serious issues with respect to the same.
Ernita Joaquin and Greitens (2012) suggested that privatization or government contracting have been associated with the transformation of the federal working since 1970 and this have promoted many other alternate forms of service delivery systems. Ernita Joaquin and Greitens (2012) reported that outsourcing or contracting out to nonprofit organizations and businesses have been increasing resulting into some positive as well as negative impacts upon market. Some of the pros associated with government contracting so far are discussed below,
Increased pay – It would be essential to consider that the salaries of contractor when compared to average federal employees will always be higher. However, the rates will vary with respective agencies and the positioning of worker, yet, salary ranges of contractors are always higher. As suggested by Lowery (1982), government contracting have proven as a source of steady income, however, smaller companies will receive smaller contracts, yet, it provides them and the associated workers a steady source of income, which is an essential aspect in today’s economy.
Good market reputation and flexibility of work – Payments associated with government contracting are provided on time to the contractors. Moreover, working for government projects reflects reliability as well as trust from the company, as a result of which the company or organization may gain a good reputation in the market. Likewise, as suggested by Golensky and DeRuiter (1999), government contracting provides contractor with a wiggle room and once the contract will be over, they are not abided to work for government again and can try their hand somewhere else. This can also be considered as a major flaw or cons associated with government contracting.
Easier to get and longer term of contracts – As mentioned above also, government contracting can be considered as steady source of income and this is true for larger companies also. Further, the process...