Research
Center staff and affiliated faculty produce significant research ranging from commentary pieces in influential outlets, to white papers and essays on pressing government contracting issues, to peer-reviewed articles in premier journals.
Center competencies and capabilities are making an impact in the government contracting industry:
- Unique and influential analysis, commentaries, reports, and webinars on the federal response to COVID.
- White Paper Series that shares cutting edge research on small business transition, intellectual property, DoD budget reform, acquisition reform, and industrial base resilience.
- Impactful op eds in The Hill, Business Insider, Defense One, Defense News, the National Interest, with additional coverage by national print and broadcast outlets.
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Reports
February 21, 2025Prototyping efforts drive innovation in technology, boost manufacturing efficiency, and support workforce development-
January 16, 2025GMU researchers recommend a National Strategy for Mobilizing the Defense Industrial Base, drawn from lessons from World War II, Iraq/Afghanistan, Covid-19, and Ukraine
October 3, 2024GMU researchers recommend a National Strategy for Mobilizing the Defense Industrial Base, drawn from lessons from World War II, Iraq/Afghanistan, Covid-19, and Ukraine-
July 18, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting, working with the Acquisition Innovation Research Center, produced three reports for the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform.
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July 18, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting, working with the Acquisition Innovation Research Center, produced three reports for the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform. Numerous processes have developed around Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) since its introduction in the 1960s. Most of those are directed by policy, while statutes and regulations identify roles and responsibilities for key personnel and organizations. Other processes are simply a matter of practice that has developed over time. Most processes are internal to the Department of Defense (DoD) and could be adjusted to improve flexibility. Recommendations are provided in the report.
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July 18, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting, working with the Acquisition Innovation Research Center, produced three reports for the Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform. The study looks at recent government and congressionally mandated commission reports as well as current legislation in relation to the suitability of new combatant command programming, budget, and acquisition authorities. The study concludes with assessments and a recommendation.
June 26, 2023Developing an effective “Build Allied” approach will help the Department of Defense create surge capacity, with both speed and scale, and industrial resilience in support of the National Defense Strategy (NDS) objectives.-
April 28, 2023The Statement of Objectives (SOO), available in Appendix 1, defines the overall objective of this study: “Identify the obstacles for small businesses to obtain financing in the private sector as well as when doing business with the Department of Defense.” (DoD) This final report addresses this objective, following the structure of the SOO.
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April 28, 2023In support of the Office of Defense Pricing & Contracting’s Contract Financing/Cost and Pricing Study, George Mason University’s Center for Government Contracting examined government accounting system requirements and their impact on commercial company participation in defense contracts.
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April 28, 2023This project focused on three research questions, over the period 2000 through 2019: A. Did free cash flow (FCF) increase or decrease over time? For what was FCF being used, and did that change over time? Was there a relationship between FCF and independent research and development (IR&D)?
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January 26, 2023Report to the Laboratories and Personnel Office, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, U.S. Department of Defense in response to the FY2020 NDAA requirement for "the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering to enter into an arrangement with a university business school or law school with resident economics and intellectual property expertise to conduct an independent assessment of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s and defense laboratories’ contracting and intellectual property management policies and their effects on the commercialization of and innovation in dual-use technology."
October 26, 2022While the platform-based defense budgeting system works well for large capital investments, many other capital investments such as the Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept require modular, cross-cutting technologies that do not fit well into program stovepipes. Even when all stakeholders are aligned, there are precious few opportunities to get funding within the traditional resource allocation process. This creates a proverbial “valley of death” that frustrates everyone involved. What types of strategies can inject the execution flexibility necessary to bridge this valley of death and get capabilities in the hands of warfighters?
White Paper Series
The Baroni Center for Government Contracting White Paper Series is a central focus of our work. The purpose of the series is to inject ideas into the government contracting ecosystem and identify potential solutions for vexing challenges facing the community.
In releasing these White Papers, the Center gratefully acknowledges the work of its senior fellows who wrote them. Through research, writing, and discussion, Center senior fellows champion matters of interest to the government contracting community. These fellows add a rich practitioner component for the Costello College of Business to better understand and support the GovCon industry.
We welcome your feedback and ideas for future topics in this series. Contact Charles Dolgas at cdolgas@gmu.edu.
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September 5, 2024Researchers at GMU’s Baroni Center on Government Contracting present landmark findings grounded in empirical evidence developed through six real-world case studies
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June 4, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting has released a comprehensive analysis on the impact of raising the Micro-Purchase Threshold (MPT) for federal acquisition and small business participation.
November 2, 2023Current government acquisition rules are depriving DoD from consistently getting the benefits of the best industry talent, the best commercial capabilities, and quicker transition and deployment of needed capabilities. If the regulatory burden and negative incentives are not addressed head on, no amount of outreach or training will bring businesses back into the defense marketplace—or keep them from leaving. . . . In this decisive decade, acquisition regulations and policy must be streamlined to deliver outcomes and informed by data gathered through continued analysis of the shrinking defense industrial base from multiple perspectives—and most importantly, through difficult conversations with industry partners.-
November 2, 2023This study sought to identify important trends in DoD’s supplier base and its rates of effective competition and market concentration, and importantly compare these trends with the rest of the federal government and its contractor base.
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August 23, 2023While the origins of the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) contracting program and its prime contracting goals date to 1958, the history of the program is one of ebbs and flows. While the SDB appellation has applied at both the prime and subcontracting level, this paper will concern itself with prime contracting opportunities. However, before examining the data on the SDB program, it is important to understand the origins and evolutions of the program, as they provide the context necessary to assess the current performance of the program.
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July 12, 2023The latest White Paper of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting, “Back to the Future? Second Sourcing in Defense Acquisitions” argues: “Second sourcing in particular offers one strategy to counter the DoD’s unsightly dependence on single and sole sources of supply. Second Sourcing does not provide a panacea to all the supply chain issues faced by DoD, but an increase in the use of second sourcing methods could be used to pivot the U.S. defense industrial base away from the current status quo of peacetime efficiency and towards a new baseline of readiness to ensure overmatch against competitors like Russia and China.”
December 15, 2022This paper looks at how Presidents have used their authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (FPASA) to issue Executive Orders shaping the Federal acquisition system.-
December 5, 2022Examines the impact of M&A strategy on company value in the government contracting community. Our empirical findings show that investors react positively to customer expansion but not as favorable to customer penetration, as financial markets appear to prioritize access to new revenue sources over improving efficiencies.
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November 1, 2022This paper dives deeper into the history of how the legislative and executive branches managed defense budget portfolios in the 1960s and before, as well as how PPBE upended those traditional processes. The paper concludes that execution flexibility in the form of portfolio budgeting is not only consistent with economic efficiency, it is consistent with United States traditions of congressional control.
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October 7, 2022New market commercial space launch entrants are pursuing goals of affordable and repeatable access to space independent of the space agency. With this context, the paper asks if NASA has been a leader or a follower of the emergence of the modern space age.The paper asks if NASA has been a leader or a follower of the emergence of the modern space age.
June 29, 2022June 29, 2022 — The Center for Government Contracting releases its latest White Paper: "Don't Get Ahead of the Data:" Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Maintenance in DoD.-
April 29, 2022The Department of Defense (DoD) faces unique data licensing challenges when acquiring artificial intelligence (AI) solutions from the private sector. This paper provides an alternative framework to the traditional data licensing strategies to better address the unique challenges of acquiring AI solutions.
Commentaries
Center commentaries provide timely insights into pressing government contracting issues in government and business. Whether the commentary topic is “in the news” or deserves “future attention,” readers are provided short, to the point on the topic, why the topic is important, and what to consider for its resolution.
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March 20, 2025"We found that there are a number of reasons for prototyping. Some of those reasons include transitioning to a program of record," said Stephanie Halcrow.
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March 16, 2025"GSA has to rightsize its lease portfolio," former GSA administrator tells Fox News Digital
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March 6, 2025Baroni Center Executive Director Jerry McGinn, Ph.D. testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services to warn lawmakers that the U.S. defense industrial base is not currently well positioned to succeed in major international conflict.
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March 4, 2025This week, she joined Thomas Temin on The Federal Drive to discuss the pivotal role GSA is playing in executing the policies of the new administration.
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February 23, 2025With DOGE turning its attention to the United States Department of Defense, Baroni Center Executive Director Jerry McGinn, Ph.D. spoke with Newsweek's Peter Aitken about how Secretary Hegseth can balance efficiency without sacrificing the readiness and lethality of U.S. forces.
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February 16, 2025Federal contractors are facing great uncertainty amidst the ongoing changes across the government.
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December 18, 2024Part 2 of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting's conversation about Planning, Programming, Budgeting & Execution (PPBE) reform with the Ken Miller, Host of From the Crow's Nest podcast.
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December 4, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting's own Jeff Kojac and Olivia Letts joined the Association of Old Crows' podcast, From the Crow's Nest, for a two-part series on Planning, Programming, Budgeting & Execution (PPBE) reform.
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November 22, 2024Richard Beutel, a senior researcher for the Baroni Center for Government Contracting, explains the concerns about a new White House cyber proposal.
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November 4, 2024The Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting’s Executive Director Jerry McGinn, Ph.D. joined Nick Wakeman, Editor-in-Chief on Washington Technology’s WT360 Podcast to talk industrial base mobilization.
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October 30, 2024On Oct. 30, 2024, Fed Gov Today with Francis Rose included a segment on a defense industrial base report written by Jerry McGinn, executive director of the Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting.
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October 11, 2024Manufacturing capacity, workforce hiring and retention, and a host of other issues continue to bedevil DoD and U.S. defense manufacturers.
Affiliated Faculty
The Center for Government Contracting offers access to both the GovCon network and funds for research and writing, to enrich the understanding of the unique business interests on both sides of this market—government and business.
Affiliated Faculty appointments will
- Encourage academic research in GovCon;
- Advance the research reputation of the faculty and the Center;
- Offer grants and honoraria to support the effort faculty can bring to this discussion; and
- Offer a new avenue to engage faculty who share our interest to create a more efficient and effective market for the public good.
Current Appointments
Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Global Engagement
Additional Roles: Associate Professor, AccountingJK Aier is the senior associate dean for academic affairs and global engagement and an associate professor within the accounting area in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University.
Director, Center for Retail Transformation and Associate Professor, Information Systems and Operations Management
Additional Roles: Academic Director, Master's in Business AnalyticsMehmet Altug is an associate professor within the Information Systems and Operations Management Area in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University.
Area Chair, Accounting
Additional Roles: Associate Professor, AccountingLong Chen is an associate professor and accounting area chair in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University. She conducts empirical archival research on issues concerning financial reporting, auditing, corporate governance, and international accounting.
Assistant Area Chair, Information Systems and Operations Management
Additional Roles: Professor, Information Systems and Operations ManagementSidhartha Das is an assistant area chair and a professor within the Information Systems and Operations Management Area in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University.
Deputy Assistant to the Director for Strategic Initiatives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory and Chairman and Co-Founder of the Andrew W. Marshall Foundation
Mr. Durnan is a director of Siga Technologies, LLC, and he has served as a director or trustee for MacAndrews & Forbes Worldwide Corp., Swift Prepaid Solutions, kSARIA Corp., Orthozon Technologies, Defensewerx, Antioch New England University, and Unity College.
Instructional Associate Professor, Management
Additional Roles: Masters of Science in Management Program DirectorVictoria Grady is the Masters of Science in Management program director and an instructional associate professor within the Management Area in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University.
Assistant Professor of Finance, Ball State University
Reza Houston is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Ball State University. He has published articles in the Journal of Corporate Finance, Financial Review, Managerial Finance, and other journals. His research interests include political economy, mergers, and federal government contracting.
Founder & Executive Director, National Security Institute and Assistant Professor of Law & Director, National Security Law & Policy Program at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University
Jamil Jaffer currently serves as Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute and as an Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the National Security Law & Policy Program at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where he teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters.
Associate Dean for Executive Education
Additional Roles: Associate Professor, MarketingBrett Josephson is the associate provost of Learning Initiatives and associate dean for Executive Education and an associate professor within the marketing area in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University.
Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis
Anne Marie Knott's research examines the optimal environment and policies (economic, industrial and firm) for innovation, and is best summarized in her book, How Innovation Really Works (March 2017). This interest stems from issues arising during an earlier career in defense electronics at Hughes Aircraft Company.