Identifying and Prioritizing Strategic Factors Affecting Outsourcing of R & D Projects in Defense Industries with Future Studies Approach

In the defense industries, R & D and future studies are essential because of the rapid technological changes. Defense research organizations can use the capabilities of other research centers, universities, and industry in meeting their research needs. However, the proper exploitation and the effectiveness of using external capabilities depend on the managerial, scientific and technical capabilities of the organization. Therefore, outsourcing, as one of the new management tools can be effective in future defense R&D projects with observing specific considerations of the defense sector. As no research has been conducted on the identification of strategic factors for outsourcing R&D projects in the defense industries area, the objective of this study is to identify and prioritize these strategic factors in defense industries over the next ten years. This study, in terms of purpose is applied, and in terms of method is descriptive-survey. The factors affecting the outsourcing of R&D projects in the defense industry have been extracted by review of the literature and views of defense industry experts and questionnaire approved by experts and the results were examined using confirmatory factor analysis method and structural equation method and SMART PLS software. In this research, seven factors affecting the outsourcing of R&D projects in defense industries along with 32 indicators were identified and confirmed, which paying attention to all of them is important. According to views of experts and the results of the Analytical Network Process (ANP), the strategic factor was placed in the first priority, and the Knowledge Management, Technological, supplier management, system, financial, and the networking infrastructure were placed in second to seventh priorities, respectively.