The Case to Widen Defence Acquisition Research Paradigms

Abstract

The rising importance of acquisition has generated a need to complement this development with a far wider research agenda. Historically, economic and commercial theoretical frameworks have dominated how procurement is conceptualized. While these conceptualizations will remain foundational in terms of measuring outcomes, they offer little by way of understanding the enablers, such as people, that facilitate the achievement of particular outcomes. Recent advances in public procurement practices have been sufficiently profound as to warrant a fundamental re-conceptualization of what is meant by defence acquisition. In order to achieve a greater understanding of this re-conceptualization, it will be necessary to both widen the range of topic areas examined and also expand the research paradigms employed. This paper concludes that an expansion in the range of research paradigms employed is necessary in order to better understand, account for, and integrate social science issues into the acquisition body of knowledge.