Zhao, Z Y; Tang, C; Zhang, X and Skitmore, M (2017) Agglomeration and competitive position of contractors in the international construction sector. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 143(6): 04017004, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
The international construction sector is an important contributor to international economic cooperation, and the past 30 years have witnessed the increase of business revenues and involved countries of the Engineering News Record's (ENR) top 250 or 225 international contractors (TICS 250) in the global market. Competitive positioning and market selection have a significant influence on contractors' development of their international sectors. This study establishes quantitative approaches for estimating the competitive position of contractors between different periods and in different sectors. The location quotient is adopted to evaluate the agglomeration level of contractors in different construction industries. The diversified changes of contractor clusters in nine different industries from 13 countries collected from the ENR are analyzed to highlight the differences in their agglomeration levels from 2009 to 2013. A competitive position matrix model is presented for international contractors in the global market as the location quotient and competitive position matrix, as novel assessment methods are effective in quantitatively analyzing the difference in agglomeration levels between typical contractor groups and the competitive statements of international contractors. Contractors can benefit from the proposed approaches as an aid to understanding their competitive position and developing appropriate strategies in the overseas arena.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | competitive position; contractors; international comparison; international market; modeling |
| Index terms: | international comparison, strategy, revenue, cooperation, estimating, international market, international construction, modelling, construction industry |
| Subjects: | strategic management, economic analysis, analytical methods, financial and cost management, data analysis and analytics, psychology, development economics, management, industry analysis |
| Topics: | International Construction, Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Cost Management, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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