Smith, J; Mills, A; Saunders, A and Love, P E D (2002) Business environment of construction firms: A comparison of metropolitan and regional enterprises in Australia. In: Greenwood, D (ed.) Proceedings of 18th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2002, Northumbria, UK.
Abstract
The construction industry tends to be viewed as an indicator of economic activity and as a relatively large employer of labour either directly as employees or indirectly in the large number of small businesses that make up the sector. Many of these small businesses are geographically dispersed, forming a significant part of business activity in some areas. For these reasons governments take an active interest in the health of the construction industry. At a time when there is concern in Australia about the level of economic activity in non- metropolitan centres, this is expressed as a concern for the health of non-metropolitan construction markets. Non-metropolitan tendering and markets appears to be a neglected area of research and deserves closer examination and attention. Understanding regional tendering markets is thus the focus of this research. This research, supported by the University of Melbourne and the Building Control Commission of Victoria, suggests that the role of construction in the regional or non-metropolitan areas of Australia does have a significant role to play underpinning the social and economic life of regional communities. The specific objectives of the total research program are to identify and analyse the problems encountered by firms tendering for building projects in non-metropolitan areas throughout Australia and to provide a detailed picture of regional tendering markets by identifying the problems or factors that may inhibit competitive bidding in the regional areas of Victoria. These factors are considered under the headings of finance, labour, staff development, market, travel, communications and government contracts. The researchers present a review of their research to date based upon this survey of regional and metropolitan contractors in Victoria, Australia..
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | business strategy; construction markets; regional tendering |
| Index terms: | program, small business, markets, economic activity, building control, construction industry, construction market, competitive bidding, business strategy, Victoria, survey, Australia, construction firm |
| Subjects: | data collection methods, organization, business, bidding, regions and continents, economic analysis, Geography, health safety and environment, software systems, industry analysis, market analysis |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Business Strategy, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Procurement, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here