Assessment of strengths in the UK international construction sector

Abstract

The background to international production theory is presented with a view to relating the eclectic approach to a part of the international construction industry. This sector includes a number of industry participants: consulting engineers, architects, surveyors, contractors and capital goods manufaturers etc. It can be observed that the sector has adapted to changing client requirements, partly triggered by competitive pressures. The nature of these can be predicted to some extent from the brief reviews of some theoretical and empirical work; the latter is drawn mostly from the contracting sector, but it is widened here to include other sector groups. Fieldwork has thus been carried out to interview a total of 20 firms comprising the different parties to the sector. Although consultants were of primary interest, it was considered that a wider selection of parties should be interviewed in order to determine some of the aspects common to each group. There is also a measure of interrelating across each group in carrying out international projects although this is more the case in competitor nations. Questions were framed on their own strengths and weaknesses, and that of their competitors, as well as the opportunities and threats faced. The findings of the survey and that of the earlier review are brought together in order to summarize where the main ‘advantages’ of the firms lie.