Measuring Small Business Participation in Air Force Contracting

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. Contracting with small business should be done for reasons beyond Congressional mandates. Small businesses' innovativeness and entrepreneurialism provide benefits that the Air Force should seek to maximize. 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. Goals for these metrics and strategies to reach those goals should be developed by the small business program.