Exploratory Study of Contracting Performance by Untrained Individuals

摘要

Recently there have been renewed calls for more and better training of contract officers in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Without appropriate training, serious contractual mistakes may be made, some of which are likely to place the DoD in a situation where it is legally bound to abide by adverse contract clauses. Given the large dollar amounts involved in many of the DoD's contracts, the financial consequences of such mistakes can be significant. The emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s has led to a significant growth in the purchase of products and services online. Most of these online transactions include the reviewing, completion, and signing of a Web-based contract. That process usually gravitates around the acceptance or rejection of Web-based contract clauses. This paper reports on an experimental study in which 178 student subjects without formal training in contracting issues were asked to accept or reject each of 20 clauses of a software purchasing contract. The subjects used a Web-based interface to accept or reject clauses. Of the 20 clauses in the contract, 6 were intentionally deceitful, in the sense that they specified binding obligations that made it unadvisable to accept them as part of a contract. On average, the subjects were able to correctly accept approximately 11 out of 14 non-deceitful clauses. Surprisingly, the subjects were able to correctly reject only 2 out of 6 deceitful clauses. The study also found that, among untrained individuals, those who are older, have more general work experience, and have above-average scholastic ability are the ones more likely to perform well in contracting tasks under conditions similar to those found in this study (i.e., Web-based contracting conditions). This study's findings provide an impetus for more and better training of contract officers in the DoD.