Organisational Strategies for Competitive Advantage in the Construction Industry: Chinese Dominance in Southern Africa

Abstract

Chinese enterprises are presently dominating various sectors of businesses abroad, offering a wide range of low to high-end quality products and services. The construction sector in Africa is now being dominated by Chinese multinational contractor companies, who find in Africa their next preferable market to grow. The available literature on the field has serious gaps in explaining which organisational strategies increase the competitive advantage and the market dominance of Chinese multinational contractors, especially in the Southern African region. This research aims to uncover the organisational strategies, implemented by Chinese multinational contractors operating in the Southern African region, who have paved the way and consolidated their success in the region. Through a mixed methods process, qualitative and quantitative data are obtained. The construction markets of the Southern African region are analysed (environmental analysis) and the main multinational Chinese contractors are identified, through a literature review and organisational analysis. Several organisational strategies are shortlisted and, finally, through an online questionnaire, the opinions of the participants to rank the organisational strategies previously identified in terms of contribution to the actual success, copying capability, etc., are carried out. The findings revealed that the capability to offer a lower price for construction services, the easy access to loans and funds from the organisation's home government and the capability to trade debt for local resources, such as wood, land and minerals are the organisational strategies that mostly contributed to the recent Chinese contractor dominance in the Southern African construction market.