The effects of technical leadership, management continuity, and organization structure in major defense system acquisition programs: A comparative case study

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the Defense Management Report of 1989 and the Defense Acquisition Improvement Act of 1990 have significantly changed the structure of weapon system acquisition. These law and policy changes have further shifted the decision authority for weapon system acquisition from the military chiefs to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the service secretariat staffs.;This research is focused on leadership skills, management continuity, and organizational attributes within the DoD acquisition structure. It seeks to understand more about DoD program managers, their second tier supporting managers, and the effect these managers have upon program success. In short, this research asks; how does a program manager satisfy the DoD acquisition bureaucracy to sustain program funding and obtain milestone approvals, while simultaneously developing and producing a weapon system that satisfies the operational needs of the officers and enlisted personnel of the Armed Services?;This dissertation expands the practical and theoretical knowledge base that sustains DoD's weapon system acquisition policy. Using the comparative case study approach, four DoD acquisition programs are researched to investigate the relationships between technical leadership, management continuity, organizational structure and the acquisition program's success or failure. In so doing, it associates program success or failure trends to the program management history of each program while identifying characteristics and relationships to improve program success. In addition, this research initiates an extension to the theory of large-system acquisition by postulating an acquisition theory model that defines the relationships between these elements.;Within the four programs compared, the most successful program managers were those dedicated to a vision. Program managers that did not embrace such a vision were likely to be administrators rather than leaders. Thus leadership was identified as a major contributor to program success. Such leadership, however, appeared only where personal commitment rose above the DoD structure.