Abstract:
This research studies the effects of competition on businesslike supporting organizations
within the Department of Defense (DOD). These public organizations are often structured
as working capital funds to create nominally businesslike management conditions. The
effort seeks to understand how competition among DOD public organizations in this
structure can be harnessed to improve their cost performance. It treats internal
organizational rivalry as a general phenomenon of public management and specifically
examines how rivalry as competition can be harnessed to improve the efficiency of public
organizations. A case study focusing on the Navy shipyard and aviation depot
competitions from 1985 to 1994 is the specific means for achieving these research
objectives. The study concludes the competition did reduce costs as part of a wider set of
Navy management initiatives during this period. The research works from a rational
choice economic perspective.
