Bridge, A J (2008) Market structures in air conditioning maintenance activity. In: Dainty, A (ed.) Proceedings of 24th Annual ARCOM Conference, 1-3 September 2008, Cardiff, UK.
Abstract
It is questionable whether activities like construction, including maintenance and repair, can be considered a single entity or industry – on the basis that different sectors of construction/maintenance use fundamentally distinct resource and skill bases. This creates a number of issues including the development of competition and reform policy. de Valence deployed the Structure-Conduct-Performance model (SCP) to delineate sectors of new/installation construction activity and, in doing so, proposes that there exists multiple market structures in a given project. The purpose of this paper is to apply the SCP model to a different sector of construction activity, that is air conditioning maintenance and test de Valence’s proposition concerning the existence of multiple market structures in a supply chain but this time to a built facility. The research method combines secondary data concerning the “Structure” component of the SCP model and primary data with regard to the “Conduct” and “Performance” parts of the SCP model. The results provide further support (beyond de Valance’s analysis of new/installation activity) that a sector system approach using the SCP model is a more effective way to analyse market structures in construction activity. This paper also supports de Valence’s proposition concerning the existence of multiple market structures in a supply chain to a project/facility.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | maintenance; market structures |
| Index terms: | construction activity, competition, repair, secondary data, air conditioning |
| Subjects: | construction operations, environmental engineering, market analysis, maintenance engineering, data collection methods |
| Topics: | Site Management, Business Strategy, Sustainability, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
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