The Rise of the Gunbelt
The Rise of the Gunbelt

Author: Ann R. Markusen

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 358

ISBN-13: 0195066480

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Index and bibliographical references included.

Studies in the Management of Government Enterprise
Studies in the Management of Government Enterprise

Author: R.J. Horn

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9400981384

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The six studies in this volume represent investigations into aspects of the management of government enterprise. For the most part the concern is with those governmental units or agencies that provide products having nongovernmental counterparts. In each case the enterprise is taken as given, and there is no attempt to justify the participation of government in the production of goods. Instead, these studies attempt to define the positions and the functions of the decision makers, to evaluate product and pricing decisions and to specify appropriate mechanisms for providing the adequate and timely information required for efficient control. The first two studies examine the managerial role. James Suarez defines an enviornment in which the typical public or private sector classification does not apply. Given the monopsonistic position of the government in the armaments market, many managerial marketing decisions are not available to private firms. Thus the objectives of the participants in this market appear to be confounded. Suarez investigates this interdependent relationship. 8 STUDIES IN THE MANAGEMENT OF GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE In "A First Approach to the Economic Theory of College Management," Barry Bressler addresses the problem of resource allocation within the college establishment. Bressler draws on utility theory to define the manager's objective function and on the imposed budget reductions suffered by units of the City University of New York to suggest some of the implications of this managerial construct. The third and fourth papers concentrate on the products of two government enterprises.

Buying Military Transformation
Buying Military Transformation

Author: Peter J. Dombrowski

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 023113570X

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In Buying Military Transformation, Peter Dombrowski and Eugene Gholz analyze the United States military's ongoing effort to capitalize on information technology. New ideas about military doctrine derived from comparisons to Internet Age business practices can be implemented only if the military buys technologically innovative weapons systems. Buying Military Transformation examines how political and military leaders work with the defense industry to develop the small ships, unmanned aerial vehicles, advanced communications equipment, and systems-of-systems integration that will enable the new military format. Dombrowski and Gholz's analysis integrates the political relationship between the defense industry and Congress, the bureaucratic relationship between the firms and the military services, and the technical capabilities of different types of businesses. Many government officials and analysts believe that only entrepreneurial start-up firms or leaders in commercial information technology markets can produce the new, network-oriented military equipment. But Dombrowski and Gholz find that the existing defense industry will be best able to lead military-technology development, even for equipment modeled on the civilian Internet. The U.S. government is already spending billions of dollars each year on its "military transformation" program-money that could be easily misdirected and wasted if policymakers spend it on the wrong projects or work with the wrong firms. In addition to this practical implication, Buying Military Transformation offers key lessons for the theory of "Revolutions in Military Affairs." A series of military analysts have argued that major social and economic changes, like the shift from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age, inherently force related changes in the military. Buying Military Transformation undermines this technologically determinist claim: commercial innovation does not directly determine military innovation; instead, political leadership and military organizations choose the trajectory of defense investment. Militaries should invest in new technology in response to strategic threats and military leaders' professional judgments about the equipment needed to improve military effectiveness. Commercial technological progress by itself does not generate an imperative for military transformation. Clear, cogent, and engaging, Buying Military Transformation is essential reading for journalists, legislators, policymakers, and scholars.