Jacobsson and Roth introduce a new perspective on partnering projects. They argue that partnering projects should be treated as engagement platforms. Recent studies have focused on the relational aspects of running partnering projects but none of these have questioned the basis for the economic exchange and value outcome. In contrast, Jacobsson and Roth propose that ‘service’ is acknowledged as the foundation of the economic exchange and that a shift in mindset is required towards viewing value as being co-created. Based on an in-depth case study of a successful Swedish partnering project (corresponding to an investment of €100-110 million over five years), the authors show how the project can be defined as an engagement platform, and discuss the consequences. Arguing that the engagement platform constitutes the enabler for co-creation of value between the involved partners, they propose three shifts related to how to understand partnering. The first relates to the purpose of partnering, the second to the understanding of the partnering outcome and the third one to how the role of clients in partnering is understood.
Hegazy and Saad address the challenge of allocating limited rehabilitation funds between a large number of infrastructure assets while providing an economic justification for the decisions. Based on their view of the resemblance between consumer spending and government spending, they examined the applicability of consumer-theory-based microeconomic concepts in the infrastructure fund-allocation problem. They used two case studies related to pavements and buildings and analysed optimum funding decisions with respect to consumer theory. The analysis proved that optimum decisions are achieved at an economic equilibrium among the different expenditure categories. The authors thus assert that the wealth of well-established microeconomic theories has great potential for adoption in the infrastructure domain to improve the economics of the multi-billion dollar business of infrastructure management through wiser justifiable spending.
Despite considerable improvements in many countries, construction still kills and injures too many people across the world. Gibb, Lingard, Behm and Cooke argue the benefits of a generic framework to better understand the causality of construction accidents, which had been developed from a real-time analysis of 100 construction accidents. The authors explain the difficulties posed by the complex, multi-causal nature of accidents and the need for careful analysis rather than just a focus on the ‘easy to prove’ immediate accident circumstances. The framework is used forensically in three different countries to better understand the causes of accidents of differing consequences. The legislative and cultural context in different countries may vary considerably, but it is still possible to apply an internationally relevant accident causality framework.
Lam and Gale conducted a single-case study to examine the financial performance of construction frameworks for highway maintenance projects within a major county council in the UK. The use of frameworks is recognized by the UK construction industrial strategy as an innovative procurement method saving money. However, support for the potential efficiencies from this approach is, at best, mixed. The authors applied independent-sample t-tests to compare the financial performance of 120 framework and traditional discrete projects. Their findings indicate that use of a framework results in no significant change in tender prices but results in significant reductions in total transaction costs for engagement and performance monitoring. Therefore, construction frameworks are financially viable for highway maintenance. The authors suggest that frameworks should be adopted to achieve significant cost savings within the wider public sector environment.
Jewell, Flanagan and Lu considered the dilemma of scope and scale for the growing number of large construction professional service (CPS) firms during their internationalization process. CPS firms face a dilemma in growing or diversifying to maximize revenue and employee output on a global scale and simultaneously being locally responsive to clients. The authors undertook a desk study of the merger and acquisitions of the top CPS companies and identified a broad range of diversification activities. They developed an effective tool to investigate CPS firms’ growth and diversification strategies over time. Interviews were undertaken with the executives of top international professional CPS firms, to establish their internationalization strategy. The authors found that firm ownership had a huge influence on the strategy for growth when seeking economies of scope and scale. New insights are provided into the growth and diversification strategies of CPS firms, by critiquing the inapplicability of traditional theories and analytical tools developed from the manufacturing or general services industries.