https://www.dau.edu
Edward Hyatt and Lloyd E. Everhart
The recent decline in the number of prime contractors participating in the defense industrial base (DIB) is a well-documented and often lamented phenomenon, yet there has been a paucity of empirical research using primary data on the topic. This study was designed to investigate the types of contractors leaving the DIB and their reasons for exit. Roughly 45,000 contractors that last held a prime contract with the Department of Defense (DoD) in Fiscal Years (FY) 2015-2021 were sent a brief survey investigating their presumed exit from the DIB. The authors received 1,037 survey responses, of which 679 were from contractors that acknowledged they had left the DIB and provided a detailed reason why they left. Three-quarters of the respondents were smaller businesses, reporting less than $5 million a year in revenue and employing less than 50 employees. Among other results, roughly one-third of all contractor- confirmed exits cited an unfavorable characteristic of working with DoD as the main reason for leaving the DIB; moreover, they identified the specifically problematic characteristic(s). These results offer unique insight into a critical area of concern for the defense acquisition community and can inform DoD’s policy and acquisition interventions in the future.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22594/dau.24-932.32.02 Keywords: Defense Industrial Base, DIB, exiting prime contractors, small business, DoD bureaucracy, survey
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Defense ARJ, Summer 2025, Vol. 32 No. 2: 194—223
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