Editorial
Neves and Bugalho analyse how international construction firms use their coordination and control systems to manage relations with their international subsidiaries. They investigate four leading construction firms with headquarters based in Portugal that implemented an internationalization strategy. The case studies show that all the headquarters initiated the control of their international activities through home‐based bureaucratic systems. Subsequently, the firms perceived the need to go beyond their formal structure by coaching their international managers to make judgments and decisions for the strategy to pay‐off locally.
Delay is a common phenomenon in the construction sector worldwide. It is not a trivial problem, but may indeed be of catastrophic proportions to the construction sector. Abdul‐Rahman et al. employ project learning as a method to reduce project delay. Results of their survey indicate that inappropriate practices of project learning are a cause of project delay. More appropriate practices of project learning can contribute considerable positive impact on the project schedule performance. The authors develop a conceptual delay mitigation model and incorporate knowledge management, project learning, lessons learnt feedback and supervisory control principles. Findings of their investigation may be useful to practitioners who seek to improve time performance. This approach is also a useful review of the existing culture of managing project knowledge by industry practitioners in day‐to‐day management of learning and knowledge.
Lai, Ng and Yung explain why the Coase Theorem has not been well received in the area of construction economics and management. They develop a transaction‐cost based research agenda for this arena. A seven‐by‐seven matrix, derived from a less well‐exploited work of Coase, “The Problem of Social Cost” is constructed. One dimension of the matrix is about seven types of institutional arrangement that would affect resource allocation in real life. The other is about seven attributes of resource allocation, including the quantities and qualities of inputs and outputs as well as externalities. The matrix can serve as an alternative tool to classify research outputs and develop empirical research proposals informed by transaction‐cost reasoning. The novelty of this work lies in the authors' attempt to operationalize the Coase Theorem.
Most world competitiveness reports include infrastructure development as a primary indicator in assessing the competitiveness of nations. Dzeng and Wang develop a discriminant competitiveness graph model that divides the competitiveness indicators pertaining to infrastructure development of a nation into logical groups, each of which calls for a different investment strategy. The model provides policy makers with a systematic method that helps objectively and quantitatively in choosing the infrastructure items to be improved. Simulated experiments based on competitiveness data from Canada, Taiwan, and Thailand show that the choices suggested by the proposed model result in better improvements, in terms of ranking, than conventional approaches.
Green, Larsen and Kao present a case study that illustrates how competitive strategy is enacted within a regional contracting firm. They give particular attention to the extent to which the firm's competitiveness can be explained in terms of its ‘dynamic capabilities’, a firm's ability to re‐configure its resources in response to changing environments. The case study highlights the empirical elusiveness of dynamic capabilities, thereby providing support for the view that they are contextually embedded. The research further demonstrates that strategy tends to be emergent rather than pre‐planned, and that path dependency shapes strategic choice. Many of the more significant activities are initiated in the absence of any boardroom sanction, and are only subsequently legitimized if they prove successful. The grounded understanding of how contracting firms respond to changing environments provided by this research is often noticeably absent from the more idealized industry improvement agendas.
Mehmet and Yorucu present evidence of the dynamo role of construction in a period of explosive economic growth in Northern Cyprus based an empirical estimation of backward and forward linkages during the period 1998 and 2005. While their findings support the general shape of the Bon‐curve, which is verified emprically in the case of micro‐state of Northern Cyprus, they also suggest that an inverted V (rather than a U) shape may be more appropriate in the case of small states with a fragile environment, limited territory or geography and policy constraints that impose height limits on vertical construction.