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this primary question—“The entity stopped bidding for work with DoD due to an unfavorable characteristic of working with DoD” and “The entity has become only a subcontractor to DoD prime contractors”—each resulted in a distinct follow-on question to gather more details. Finally, respondents could add any final comments in an open text format and given an opportunity to provide their consent and contact information for an optional postsurvey interview.
Survey Response Coding Expert coding and open coding (Saldaña, 2021) were two analytical techniques utilized to make the initial survey results more meaningful for addressing this important topic. The first step was to recode many of the “Other” responses into other existing answer choices; the second step was to create additional “Other” categories based on themes in the open text responses. Recoding Other Responses Initially, respondents reported “Other” in 162 instances as the primary reason why the contractor no longer held an existing prime contract with DoD. This represented nearly a quarter of all explanations for exit, which would render the results less informative overall. In many cases, the additional text response included with the “Other” answer choice made it clear that the reason for exit warranted a recode into an already existing category. One of the most significant changes resulting from the recoding was that many of the “Other” responses were recategorized as a DIB exit due to an unfavorable characteristic of working with DoD, thereby increasing that category from 16% (112 responses) to 24% (165 responses) of the sample. In those instances, the authors also coded the follow-on question that asked, “Why did the entity stop bidding for work
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Defense ARJ, Summer 2025, Vol. 32 No. 2: 194—223
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