A behavioral approach to meeting contingency contracting personnel requirements

MBA Professional ReportThis project describes the incentive processes and programs affecting U.S. Army recruitment outcomes in its attempts to encourage civilian participation in deployments for contingency contracting. Major models of human motivation are analyzed in terms of possibilities for improving the shortage of civilian contingency contracting deployments identified by the Gansler Report (October 2007). Issues of incentives, employee needs, motivation, expectations, and deployment concerns, are explored to determine how to increase the quantity and quality of deployable civilians. These issues are organized in accordance with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to facilitate a model-based perspective on the Deployable Contingency Contracting Cadre (DCCC) experience. Resultant recommendations include: conduct of an official survey to enhance understanding of the target pool, improvements to the DCCC program which exert maximum control over the forces which affect participation (e.g., a Direct Support Ribbon for participants, DCCC hiring preference points, etc.), and stratification of the DCCC to provide members with a choice of risk levels and associated pay. The researcher also recommends development of distributed contingency contracting support via a "Virtual Contingency Contracting Cadre," whereby the Army's existing technological investments are leveraged to deliver the work capabilities of numerous personnel without the requirements of a physical presence.http://archive.org/details/abehavioralpproa1094510464Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited