Organizational Change for Acquisition Reform: Proposed Core Competencies

The post cold war environment and reduced budgets have forced the military to important acquisition reform. While the Department of Defense has achieved some success, the pace of reform is still relatively slow and some concern exists about the reforms breadth and depth. The research presented here attempts to help matters by proposing core competencies for organizations undergoing change for acquisition reform. These core competencies are derived from a comparison of theory with actual practice. A discussion of possible change strategies shows various mattersmethods to achieve Lewins framework of organizational change unfreezing the system, movement towards a new orientation, and refreezing new behaviors and attitudes. These strategies are compared with the case study of successful acquisition reforms implementation in the Joint Direct Attack Munitions JDAM program office.