Predicting Bid Protests: What Should Acquisition Teams (Not) Do?

Abstract

Bid protests are increasing, and the effectiveness for protestors is relatively high. Bid protests delay receipt of needed goods and services. They are costly to prevent and to adjudicate. The purpose of this research is to better understand why bid protests are lodged by interested parties. This research concentrates on meso-level factors controlled by the acquisition team that affect the receipt of a bid protest, namely, the characteristics of the procurement, acquisition strategy decisions, and human factors. Using an existing data set of 240 government source selections resulting from a survey of U.S. Navy contracting officials, a logistic regression model finds support for six antecedents. This research implicates the importance of criticality of the procured item or service, the type of value procured (i.e., services versus goods), the use of oral presentations, protest fear, protest experience, and cost reimbursement contracts in receiving a bid protest. Based on the findings, several managerial and theoretical implications are offered, in addition to promising paths for future research.