Jewell, C A (2011) A typology of construction professional service firms: A consulting engineering perspective. PhD thesis, University of Reading, UK.
Abstract
Construction professional services (CPS) make an important contribution to the UK economy through overseas trade. They have recorded a positive balance for at least a decade, yet the way CPS companies operate overseas is not well understood. Many CPS firms have globalised and changed their organizational structure, intra-organisation co-ordination, and business strategies. They operate in rapidly changing environment which has become more complex with greater foreign ownership, different forms of procurement, and the greater use of joint venturing. Globalization continues to transform the manner in which business is undertaken by the lowering of international barriers to the flow of goods, services, capital and labour, and a marked acceleration in the pace of technological and scientific progress. There is a significant amount of research undertaken to understand the definition, characteristics, classification, trading and marketing of services and an increasing amount of research into professional service firms. However, there is little research into CPS firms in the international construction market. The research identified most CPS firms want to operate globally, but localization is very important. The available multinational corporation (MNC) organisation models, based on manufacturing, do not fit well with CPS firms, whose services are highly customized and location specific. A typology was developed that sought to differentiate CPS engineering firms working overseas and explain the way they account and organise their business and their growth strategies. The typology, based on five dissimilarities identified from the within- and across-case analyses, reveal the importance of ownership, growth strategy and local autonomy in their overseas offices. Furthermore, the manufacturing models were shown to be inappropriate for CPS firms that are characterised by high customization and location specificity. Local responsiveness is important to the firms, but equally, centralized knowledge management, human resources and risk management systems allow the best available service is available to clients on a worldwide basis. It was shown that a heterarchical model would ensure a balance between the global and the local.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | globalization; labour; knowledge management; marketing; risk management; professional service firm; co-ordination; market; ownership; cross-case analyses; UK; organizational structure |
| Index terms: | professional service firm, customization, localization, acceleration, international construction, risk management, marketing, ownership, construction professional, engineering firm, business strategy, strategy, organizational structure, knowledge management, cross-case analysis, globalization, human resource |
| Subjects: | organization, strategic management, urban planning, construction manufacturing, business, risk assessment, data analysis and analytics, economics, management, professional development, firms, sociology, project controls, economic factors |
| Topics: | Risk Management, Business Strategy, Information Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Governance, International Construction, Human Resources, Time Control, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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