What is the difference between government corporations and government contractors




















Initial requests — Contract opportunities are identified and relevant support information is collected. Preliminary drafting — The contract is written up either manually or though automated contract management software. Negotiation — Both parties in the contract sit down with the first contract draft and negotiate terms and conditions. The contract may need to be amended at this stage if parties hold significant reservations on a certain clause.

Contract approval — The final vision of the contract is approved both by the negotiating team and upper management. Implementation — Terms of the contract begin to be implemented, or executed, as per contract specifications. Obligation management — Each party to the contract specifies who is responsible for each key contract deliverable, ensuring that obligations are met on time and within budget.

Amendment provisions — It is possible that new information may become available as the contract is underway. If this is the case, room needs to be made for the possibility of contract amendment. Audits — To ensure that contract terms are being met throughout the duration of the contract, regular audits are typically used.

Audits also have the added benefit of giving forewarning of problems that may arise. Contract renewal — Once the terms of the contract are met and both parties are satisfied, there may be a chance to renew the contract for further business dealings. Commercial contract managers should always be aware of this possibility and seek to keep profitable contracts in play for as long as possible. Government Contracts Government contracts are used when an organization seeks to do business with the federal government.

Key Difference These examples are but a few of the differences between commercial and government contracts. Learn More About Villanova Yes, give me access to a brochure with course info, pricing and more! Enroll Now Online Fill out the form below to get started and take the next step toward your educational goals. Private organizations are owned by corporations, LLC, individuals. Government is public sector. Corporations and partnerships are Private sector.

The government wants to support both the public and private sector to improve the economy and well-offness of the people it serves. What was the difference between the Britain and america goverment. The biggest difference between a government agency and a private organization is the number of constraints placed on agencies from other parts of government and by law. A government bureau cannot hire, fire, build or sell without going through procedures set by congress, often through law, and Presidents exert considerable power over bureaucracies.

Business Management typically refers to running private, for profit companies. Public Administration means running government agencies. A municipality is a city. An municipal corporation is a business. Log in. Politics and Government. Study now. See Answer. Best Answer. Study guides. Investing and Financial Markets 25 cards.

What is the purpose of the World Trade Organization. What is one difference between government agencies and government corporations. A company can secure additional capital without going into debt by doing what. Technical analysis of a company's stock focuses on what. Economics 27 cards. What does a budget reveal about a government. What does a progressive taxation system do. How can recent government spending be best described. Economics 21 cards. What is a Progressive tax. Q: What is one difference between government agencies and government corporations?

Write your answer Related questions. What is one difference between government agencies and government contractors? What is one difference between government corporations and government contractors? What is one difference between government agencies anf government contractors? Whether a government corporation is best managed by a full-time board e.

There are positives and negatives to the various options for corporate governance. A board of directors is the trademark of a government corporation, according to many lawmakers and attorneys.

Marshall Dimock, an academic writing in , argued that a board of directors was considered an essential element for an "authentic" government corporation. A few years later, Harold Seidman challenged the view that a board of directors was an essential and necessarily desirable element for a government corporation. Dimock's view, he asserted, was based on an inappropriate borrowing of state practice by the federal government.

State incorporation laws require boards of directors for private corporations to insure representation where ownership is held by more than one party. In government corporations, under this reasoning, because ownership resides in the government alone, there is no inherent need for a board of directors.

A board of directors may well be found advisable and useful under some circumstances, but, Seidman said, it is not the sine qua non of a government corporation.

Whether or not a board of directors is essential or desirable for a government corporation, the fact is that all but two federal government corporations presently have boards of directors. The two exceptions are Ginnie Mae and the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. In a study published in , the National Academy of Public Administration was critical of boards of directors in general:. We believe that this arrangement, borrowed from the private corporation model, has more drawbacks than advantages and that in most cases the governing board would be better replaced by an advisory board and the corporation managed by an administrator with full executive powers.

A governing board may cut or confuse the normal lines of authority from the President or departmental secretary to the corporation's chief executive officer. With an advisory board, the secretary's authority to give that officer policy instruction is clear, as is the officer's right to report directly to the secretary and to work out any exemptions from or qualifications of administration or departmental policies and practices which the corporation requires.

There is little doubt that a board of directors, particularly a part-time, "outsiders" board, is a "buffer" between the corporation's top executive and political officials, including the President. Whether such a buffer is a desirable feature in the overall administrative system, however, is a question subject to debate. Notably, it is also argued that corporation board appointments are patronage plums for the White House since the jobs are not generally demanding. The effectiveness and utility of boards is dependent upon a number of factors: the coherency of the enabling legislation, the conceptual integrity and soundness of the program itself, and the number and quality of membership.

Large boards comprising more than 12 members , for instance, may experience difficulty in making decisions. The play of internal factors, such as the size of the board, the primary loyalties of board members whether to the corporation or to an outside constituency group , and the relationship of the board to the corporate management all also have their place in the managerial equation.

There is, at present, little central management agency oversight or supervision of government corporations as a category of agency in the executive branch. Nor is there any central unit charged with designing government corporations from the perspective of presidential or central management interests. Individual corporations come under scrutiny from time to time by OMB and Congress, or more precisely, a congressional committee responsible for oversight.

More often than not, the immediate impetus for the oversight follows from indications that a corporation is operating at financial risk or there is an appearance of wrongdoing. The current absence of systematic oversight of corporations as a class runs counter to the intentions of the sponsors of the GCCA.

The Bureau of the Budget BOB , predecessor organization to OMB, was instrumental in the passage of the GCCA, and created a separate office to oversee the formation, and monitor the operation, of government corporations on behalf of the President. During the s, this specialized staff function atrophied until at some point in the s it is fair to conclude that there was little remaining central executive staff capacity to provide information, expert advice, or oversight of government corporations or to develop and implement consistent policies governing their formation, authorities, and operations.

Government corporations are not considered by OMB to be a category of organization to be supervised collectively. OMB, in support of its position, contends:. The responsibility for oversight of government corporations was not changed by the OMB reorganization. That is, government corporations will continue to be reviewed by the Resource Management Office RMO which has responsibility for the functional area most closely associated with the corporation's mission OMB does not review government corporations separately from other government organizations that perform similar functions.

The executive branch treatment of management responsibilities respecting government corporations as a class of organization tends to place additional burdens on Congress and its committees to determine if the corporations are respecting the provisions of the general management laws e. One corollary of limited central management oversight of government corporations is the lack of answers to fundamental issues regarding when and how government corporations ought to be created and utilized.

There are at least two schools of thought respecting the proper use of the government corporation option relating to its structure, authority, and financial systems. One school holds that government corporations, including agencies called corporations but which do not perform commercial activities, should be encouraged, provided maximum policy and financial autonomy, and be subject to such oversight as is appropriate for other agencies and instrumentalities in the same policy field.

The legal responsibilities of the corporation should be located in its enabling statute. The position of the second school is that government corporations should be established only when appropriate criteria and standards, developed by a central management agency, are met. Such standards should be reflected in a national incorporation law and apply to all proposed and functioning corporate bodies properly defined.

Government corporations should be considered to be part of the executive branch, but with recognition of their distinctive needs and oversight requirements as a category of institutions. The government corporation concept may be considered a useful alternative to privatization of some agency, or it may be employed as a transition step toward eventual full privatization.

The principal utility of the transitional government corporation is that it can demonstrate marketability and asset value, critical elements in any successful privatization venture.

An early successful example of the government corporation concept as a transition vehicle involved Conrail. Conrail was created by Congress as a government corporation in from the remnants of seven private, bankrupt railroads. The transition period as a government corporation was necessary to develop a record as a potentially profit-making venture prior to a successful privatization divestiture effort. More recently, the U. Enrichment Corporation USEC has completed its transitional process toward full privatization, with mixed results.

In the s, the plants produced highly enriched uranium HEU for defense purposes. Times changed and the United States was successfully challenged by new international entrants into the market. The Energy Policy Act of P. Enrichment Corporation as a wholly owned government corporation.

The general intent of the legislation was to "privatize" the two plants and let them compete in the world market. The plan suggested that there were two primary methods of corporate divestiture: an initial public offering IPO and a merger or acquisition with another corporation or group of corporations. The USEC transition process highlighted, however, one of the perennial problems in privatization efforts.

Congress may intend a corporation to be private, but it also may want the corporation to continue to be involved in public policy implementation. In this instance, Congress wanted the corporation to participate in implementing a foreign policy objective, which was to purchase at above market rates a substantial amount of Russian enriched uranium otherwise destined for Russian weapons.

Under the HEU agreement, the USEC received enriched uranium from Russian nuclear weapons and, in addition to its payment for the material, returned an equivalent amount of natural unenriched uranium to Russia to sell on the world market.

This arrangement, from the corporation's perspective, was not viable and in October , the USEC solicited Congress for "relief. Another characteristic of a private corporation, legally organized and defined as such, is the right to cancel a program or withdraw from an activity if it is not deemed in the fiduciary interests of the shareholders.

The board's decision made manifest the fiduciary distinctions between a government and private corporation. The federal government may, for whatever reason, choose to directly divest itself of a commercial activity or asset and not follow the transition corporation option to establish its value in the market.

Although a transition corporation had been recommended by an outside study, 49 the Department of Energy determined to directly divest itself of the California fields of the Elk Hills National Petroleum Reserves. The government corporation form of federal agency is a useful option to consider when establishing or reorganizing an agency with revenue potential. It is helpful to bear in mind, however, that there is no general provision in law that defines what, precisely, government corporations are.

When writing the GCCA, Congress and the executive branch simply viewed the various corporate bodies, and defined them by enumeration, rather than by required characteristics. This relatively unstructured approach has meant that some corporate bodies e.

Postal Service are not included in the GCCA enumeration, whereas other bodies, arguably non-corporate in function and authority e. There is little managerial oversight at present of government corporations as an institutional category by either the President or Congress. What oversight there is tends to be corporation-specific. In the case of Congress, corporations are assigned to committees of subject-matter jurisdiction. A GAO report recommended that corporations properly require both subject matter and management oversight, and that the GCCA should be reconstituted to establish in law the characteristics of various types of corporate bodies.

Government corporations may be viewed as permanent agencies to perform a continuing governmental function e. Enrichment Corporation. These options indicate the flexibility of the government corporation concept and may provide models for extending the corporate organization to other appropriations-funded agencies e.

Patent and Trademark Office and the U. Both the latter agencies and their programs meet the basic criteria for a government corporation and suggestions to this effect have been made. The future of government corporations as a category of federal organization appears generally bright although they are not widely understood in executive management circles. The need for the executive branch and Congress to develop new organizational structures that take into account both the public law requirements of governmental status, and the flexibility that properly accompanies corporate bodies dependent upon revenues for services may increase.

If the conceptual basis of the law establishing a corporation or economic assumptions therein are faulty, as was allegedly the case with the Synthetic Fuels Corporation in the late s, a government corporation may become a liability to the executive branch and face a short tenure. Although it has been the purpose of this report to emphasize the distinctive characteristics of federal government corporations, it is important to conclude with a statement of their shared characteristics with other federal agencies.

The mission of both regular, appropriations-financed agencies and of government corporations is the same, to implement the laws passed by Congress. Thomas H. Salamon, ed. Sharpe, ; A. New York: Oxford University Press, , pp.

Washington: GPO, The term "New Public Management" refers to the literature, propositions, and practices that promote the conceptual convergence of governmental and private sector management. Cooper and Chester A. Newland, eds. For a list of federal government corporations, as defined in this report, please consult the Appendix.

This report's definition of "government corporation" excludes a great many federal entities. It excludes private corporations created by federal statute e. It also excludes some corporations that Congress itself has called "government corporations. Though clearly a federal entity, the MCC is not included on this report's list because MCC does not provide market-oriented products or services—the MCC is a grant-awarding agency that is not designed to be financially self-sufficient.

This definition holds only for "the purpose of this title," i. With Congress's assent, both the Rural Telephone Bank and the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation and dissolved themselves under their own corporate authorities.



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