Army Small Business Innovation Research: a survey of Phase II awardees

Abstract

The shift towards qualify performance and accounting for results has dramatically changed the way Government executes public policy objectives. The advent of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) places the responsibility for gathering this information upon each Federal activity subject to its provisions. The Army SBIR program must now find a way to qualify its performance and determine what results are derived from a program that expends in excess of $100,000,000 annually on research. This thesis analyses Army Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) commercialization rates against a National Science Foundation study of DoD Fast Track and DoD Control Group awards. It provides an objective measure of program results that program officials can use to submit their annual GPRA performance reports. The thesis studied 37 SBIR phase II firms and established a performance baseline. The thesis concludes that Army SBIR awards are outperforming DoD Fast Track and DoD Control Groups in the critical area of average commercial sales per award. It recommends a reduced focus on outside investment and a survey strategy that uses small sample sizes to qualify program performance. It concludes with a proposed survey instrument that Army SBIR managers can use to capture future program outcomes.