Military Business Success

This is a NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY CA report procured by the Pentagon and made available for public release. It has been reproduced in the best form available to the Pentagon. It is not spiral-bound, but rather assembled with Velobinding in a soft, white linen cover. The Storming Media report number is A507424. The abstract provided by the Pentagon follows: The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program was created in 1982 to stimulate research and development among small businesses while providing the government innovative technical and scientific solutions to challenging problems. In the SBIR Program, Phase I awards are made for research projects that evaluate the scientific and technical merit of an idea. Phase II awards are made to further develop selected Phase I projects that demonstrate the greatest potential. In Phase III, the small business or research institute is expected to obtain funding from the private sector and/or non-SBIR government sources to develop the prototype into a viable product or service for sale in the military or private-sector markets. This study identifies and measures the variables that shape the success of the Naval Air System Command's (NAVAIR) SBIR program from the stakeholders' point of view. As different stakeholders have different perspectives on how they perceive success in this program, the authors used a qualitative approach to identify the variables that shape the success of NAVAIR's SBIR program from the small firms' viewpoint. The analysis and results were generated based on the interviewees' perceptions and responses to questions asked in telephone interviews. The authors interviewed a representative sample of firms that had successfully reached Phase III in the SBIR Program. On completion of the interviews, the samples were transcribed and subjected to qualitative comparative analysis. The results were used to identify the variables that represent the main factors leading to program success.