Construction In China Research Articles

The effect of the digital economy on carbon emissions in China's construction industry: evidence from spatial econometric analysis.

Carbon emission reduction in the construction industry is vital for realizing sustainable development, and the development of the digital economy plays an important role in this process. The impact of the digital economy on reducing carbon emissions in the construction industry is empirically explored through econometric analyses on a sample of panel data from 30 provinces in China from 2012 to 2021. The empirical results show that developing a digital economy can significantly reduce the construction industry's carbon emission intensity. Additionally, this impact has a significant spatial spillover effect and can benefit the neighboring regions. The mechanism test shows that the digital economy can reduce carbon emissions by improving the technological level of the construction industry. Moreover, the inhibiting effects of the digital economy on carbon emissions in the construction industry vary across different regions. They are more pronounced in the eastern and western regions of low coal-consuming regions. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers to help drive the deeper integration of the digital economy with the construction industry and facilitate its transition to low-carbon development.

How to improve supply chain sustainable performance by resilience practices through dynamic capability view: Evidence from Chinese construction

This study explores the relationship between supply chain resilience (SCR) and sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP) within the context of the Chinese construction industry, a sector known for its complexity and vulnerability to disruptions. Drawing on data from 525 construction companies, the research investigates how SCR directly influences SSCP and examines the mediating role of dynamic capabilities in this relationship. The results highlight those dynamic capabilities, specifically the ability to seize and reconfigure, serve as critical mediators in the resilience-sustainability relationship while sensing does not have a significant mediating effect. This suggests that in highly dynamic environments like China's construction sector, focusing on capturing opportunities and reconfiguring resources is more effective for achieving sustainable outcomes than relying solely on sensing capabilities. This finding contributes to the growing body of knowledge by providing a nuanced understanding of how resilience practices can be leveraged to promote long-term sustainability.

BIM Driving Innovation in Construction Industry: Advancements in Building Lifecycle Management and Facility Management

With the rapid development of the traditional construction industry, China's construction market is becoming saturated and overcapacity, and the global macro economy is facing uncertainty. Negatively impacted by global events and the climate crisis, the willingness of traditional architectural firms to invest in real estate, infrastructure and other projects needs to be higher. The enhancement of digital information technology has brought greater freedom and openness, and traditional architects are looking to BIM technology to stimulate creativity and build more dynamic buildings. This paper analyses the development and application of BIM technology from the perspective of the BIM+ intelligent management model. It discusses the importance of upgrading the traditional construction industry, especially in building life cycle management. Through BIM+ intelligent management, the traditional construction industry can handle the information in all project stages more efficiently and achieve the goal of resource integration. At the same time, the combination of BIM and facility management can realise intelligent operation and monitoring of building projects. This paper reviews related research and looks forward to the future research direction of combining BIM and building facility management.

Analysis of the non-equilibrium and evolutionary driving forces of carbon emissions in China's construction industry

Clarifying the historical characteristics and influencing factors of carbon emissions in the construction industry is essential for formulating targeted emission reduction policies. The study utilized Dagum Gini coefficient and geographical detector to measure and analyze the regional disequilibrium characteristics and key driving factors of carbon emissions from the construction industry in China. The results indicate that regional disparities are the primary drivers of spatial imbalances in carbon emissions from China's construction industry. Indirect and interactive carbon emission driving forces were the main drivers of the spatial imbalance of carbon emissions. The output value of the regional economy and industrial structure exerted a significance influence. Notably construction output value, industrial structure and energy efficiency emerged as the main interaction factors. From these findings, four main conclusions are drawn: Controlling the carbon emission of building materials significantly alleviates the spatial imbalance of carbon emission in China's construction industry. The principle of regional coordinated carbon emission reduction in the construction industry should be followed. The regional economic level and industrial structure differences significantly affect the non-equilibrium of construction industry's carbon emissions. Accelerate the development of energy infrastructure can help to improve the construction industry's carbon emission balance. For the first time, Dagum Gini coefficient was combined with geographical detector analysis to study the disequilibrium of carbon emissions in the construction industry. This approach identified new multi-factor interaction driving forces, contributing to a deeper understanding of carbon emissions in the construction sector.

Digital Transformation and Green Innovation Synergy: Double Drivers for Global Value Chain Upgrading in China's Construction Machinery Industry

With the digital transformation of the global economy and the deepening of the concept of sustainable development, China's construction machinery industry faces major opportunities and challenges in the reconstruction and upgrading of the global value chain. Based on the dynamic capability theory and the collaborative innovation theory, this study constructs a theoretical framework of "digital transformation-green innovation-global value chain upgrading" to explore the impact of the synergy between digital transformation and green innovation on improving the position of Chinese construction machinery companies in the global value chain. This study uses a multi-source data fusion method, combined with patent data, financial statements and questionnaires, to construct an unbalanced panel data set of 189 listed construction machinery companies in China from 2010 to 2022, and uses econometric methods such as dynamic panel modeling, threshold regression and machine learning to analyze. The study finds that: (1) The impact of digital transformation on the global value chain upgrading of construction machinery companies presents a nonlinear "U-shaped" curve relationship; (2) Green innovation plays a positive regulatory role in the relationship between digital transformation and value chain upgrading; (3) There is a significant synergy between digital transformation and green innovation ; (4) The quality of the institutional environment has an important impact on the synergy, and a high-quality institutional environment enhances the synergy; (5) Enterprise heterogeneity significantly moderates the impact of synergy on value chain upgrading. The study expands the theory of global value chains, enriches the theory of collaborative innovation, provides a new theoretical perspective for the integration of digital economy and green development, and provides practical guidance for enterprises and governments to formulate relevant strategies and policies. Future research can further explore the cross-national comparison and long-term dynamic evolution of synergy effects.Digital transformation

The Duality of Technological Innovation and Dynamic Capabilities: The Micro-Foundation of China's Construction Machinery Industry's Rise up the Global Value Chain

In the context of global value chain reconstruction, Chinese construction machinery enterprises are facing the dual challenges of technological innovation and global competitiveness improvement. Based on organizational learning theory and dynamic capability perspective, this study constructs a theoretical framework of dual integration of technological innovation (exploratory innovation and pioneering innovation) and dynamic capability, and explores its impact mechanism on the global value chain upgrading of Chinese construction machinery enterprises. The study adopts a mixed research method, combining large-scale patent data analysis and in-depth case study, and constructs a longitudinal data set of 146 Chinese construction machinery enterprises from 2005 to 2022. By using structural equation modeling, dynamic panel regression and machine learning algorithms, this study reveals the following main conclusions: (1) The relationship between technological innovation duality and the global value chain position of enterprises is inverted U-shaped, and there is an optimal equilibrium point; (2) Dynamic capabilities partially mediate the relationship between technological innovation duality and global value chain climbing, among which absorptive capacity and reconstruction capacity are particularly critical; (3) The degree of internationalization of enterprises positively moderates the impact of technological innovation duality on dynamic capabilities; (4) The quality of the institutional environment moderates the relationship between technological innovation duality and dynamic capabilities, and a high-quality institutional environment strengthens the positive relationship between the two. The theoretical contributions of this study are: (1) it expands the global value chain theory and incorporates the duality of technological innovation into the analytical framework; (2) it reveals the mediating mechanism of dynamic capability theory in innovation and value chain climbing, enriching the dynamic capability theory; (3) it provides new empirical evidence for organizational learning theory and clarifies the dynamic process of exploration and utilization equilibrium. At the practical level, the research results provide guidance for engineering machinery companies to formulate innovation strategies and enhance global competitiveness, and also provide a basis for the government to formulate industrial upgrading policies. Future research can further explore the long-term evolution path of technological innovation duality and its differences in cross-cultural contexts.

The Integration of Artificial Intelligence in Architectural Visualization Enhances Augmented Realism and Interactivity

The construction industry is an important part of the national economic market of various countries; since 2013, the construction industry's added value in the gross domestic product has been more than 6%, reaching 6.89% in 2022, and is a pillar industry of the national economy. Intelligent construction is the realistic demand to promote the high-quality development of China's construction industry. It is the key focus of transforming and upgrading the traditional construction industry to information, digital, and intelligent. As a new production factor, construction robots have become the key to promoting intelligent construction. Under the guidance of various national and industry policies, thanks to China's huge construction market volume and rich application scenarios, many innovative and entrepreneurial entities have entered the field of construction robots. Architectural visualization is a crucial aspect of architectural design and communication. With the development of science and technology, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is increasingly becoming an essential tool for architectural visualization and communication. The emergence of AI technology has provided architects with more flexible and creative ways to present design ideas. All along, designers who love architecture have been passionate about exploring better solutions for architecture, but there is never an optimal solution for architectural design; AI is the fire of the future era; it brings us more opportunities but also forces us to face new challenges from the future.

Construction and Comparative Analysis of Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones Outside China

China's construction of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones is one of the important measures for the Chinese government to promote opening up and strengthen international cooperation. The Chinese government supports powerful enterprises to carry out various forms of mutually beneficial cooperation abroad, so as to promote the common development with the host country. When Chinese enterprises invest in overseas economic and trade cooperation zones, they will attract more enterprises to invest and set up factories in the host countries, which will increase the employment and tax revenue of the host countries, increase foreign exchange earned through export, improve technological level and promote common economic development. This paper aims to explore the characteristics, models and similarities and differences of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zone construction with similar mechanisms in other countries through comparative analysis, so as to deeply understand China's role in the global economy. The construction of China's overseas economic and trade cooperation zones will provide important opportunities for Chinese enterprises to expand the international market and improve their international competitiveness, and also make positive contributions to promoting global economic cooperation and development.

The Application and Development of New Green Building Technologies in Construction

With the continuous development of the social economy, China is gradually accelerating and playing a very important role in construction projects. However, the construction industry is also developing rapidly. Although China has become the world's largest construction market, it also faces many problems in the process of development, such as excessive energy consumption, serious resource waste, and serious environmental pollution. These problems seriously affect the sustainable development of China's construction industry. Green building is a construction model that conforms to the concept of sustainable development. Green buildings can not only save resources and energy, but also reduce the impact on the environment, thereby promoting sustainable development of China's socio-economic and ecological environment. Therefore, this article will analyze and study the application of new green building technologies in construction, aiming to promote the further development of green buildings in China.

Boosting green technology innovation in China's construction industry: The power of energy-consuming rights trading policy

Despite the energy-consuming rights trading (ECRT) as a policy practice to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the existing literature has not yet clearly revealed how it affects green technology innovation in the construction industry. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 2010 to 2021, this paper empirically examines the impact and mechanism of the pilot ECRT policy on green technology innovation in the construction industry using the difference-in-differences (DID) method. The study shows that the ECRT policy significantly enhances green technology innovation in the construction industry in the pilot areas. Specifically, the level of green technological innovation in the construction industry in the pilot areas increased by 23.2 % after the implementation of the ECRT policy. Further mechanistic tests show that the ECRT policy promotes green technological innovation in the construction industry by increasing research and development (R&D) investment and upgrading the industrial structure. This paper assesses for the first time the impact of the ECRT policy on green technology innovation from the construction industry's perspective, providing a new perspective for assessing the impact of market-based environmental regulation. This paper is also highly significant for the government to enhance its policies on energy saving and pollution reduction.

Synergizing stakeholder collaboration for value co-creation in China's prefabricated decoration diffusion: A tripartite evolutionary game perspective

The emerging prefabricated decoration (PD) sector in China offers a compelling avenue for revolutionizing the construction industry, aligning with the imperatives of sustainability and industrialization. However, the outlook for the diffusion of PD in China's construction industry is less than promising. The development of PD is closely related to its value creation and the intricate interplay of stakeholder strategies and their ramifications on PD's value co-creation necessitates thorough exploration. Based on evolutionary game theory, this study elucidates the dynamic interactions among local governments, developers, and decoration contractors in China's evolving PD landscape. A tripartite evolutionary game model was established, investigating the evolutionary stable equilibriums and the corresponding strategies. Then, an empirical analysis in Chongqing City validates the game models and primary conclusions. Scrutinizing subsidy thresholds, local subsidy biases, PD proportion in prefabrication, and binary innovation allocation, the research unveils nuanced insights pertinent to boosting PD's value co-creation. Findings advocate an assembly rate threshold of subsidy (65%–70 %) and a shift towards incentivizing decoration contractors to catalyze PD adoption. Additionally, excessive PD proportion and immature product investments may hinder industry development, prompting stakeholders to recalibrate strategies dynamically. These findings characterize the mechanisms of stakeholder value co-creation during the PD diffusion, enriching the implications of value co-creation theory in the emerging industry of the construction sector. They also furnish stakeholders committed to promoting the diffusion of PD in the domestic and international construction sectors with practical strategic guidance, particularly tailored for cities in the early stages of PD development.

Research on Financial Fraud of Selen Technology

China's Construction of High-quality Capital Market Holds Zero Tolerance to Financial Fraud of Listed Companies. Selen Technology was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2010. In 2020, it was disclosed by the CSRC that it had engaged in financial fraud for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018, with inflated profits of up to RMB180 million. In this paper, Selen Technology is selected as a case company, and the motivation, means and causes of financial fraud are analyzed based on fraud triangle theory, and the corresponding governance measures are given.

Characteristics and factors influencing the expansion of urban construction land in China

As a new product of rapid urbanization, the sprawl of urban construction land can objectively reflect urban land use efficiency, which is of great significance to China's new urban construction. This study aimed to summarize the expansion patterns and utilization efficiency of urban construction land in China from the perspectives of the status, speed and trends of expansion, and to uncover the key factors that lead to the differential distribution of the expansion of construction land. It can also provide land management experience for other countries with rapid expansion of construction land. The results show the following. (1) The expansion of China's construction land presents a "point–line–plane" pattern of evolution, forming changing stages of point-like aggregation, linear series and planar spread. (2) China's construction land shows the characteristics of disorderly spread, a low utilization rate and low output efficiency. The speed of expansion presents clear characteristics of being high in the east and low in the west, mostly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration. Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have the highest intensity of construction land use. In Shandong Peninsula and eastern coastal areas, the intensity of the construction land use is generally high. In Xinjiang and Xizang, the intensity of construction land use is relatively low. (3) The urban economic level, population size, industrial structure, foreign investment and land policies have significant effects on the spatial distribution of the expansion of construction land.

Digital economy's role in shaping carbon emissions in the construction field: Insights from Chinese cities

Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the construction sector is essential to sustainable development policy. Previous studies have ignored the impact of the digital economy on carbon emissions in the construction industry. Using relevant city-level data from China from 2011 to 2021 and employing ArcGIS and Stata software, this study examines the current status of carbon emissions from the construction industry and investigates the impact of the digital economy on these emissions. The findings reveal that (1) from 2011 to 2021, carbon emissions of the construction industry have a pattern of decreasing-increasing-decreasing-increasing across the country. There is an increasing concentration of areas with high and relatively high carbon discharges in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Guangxi, and Guizhou. (2) The standard deviation ellipse indicates the core area of carbon emissions in China's construction industry is moving northeast and becoming more decentralized. (3) Through a series of robustness tests, the digital economy has been proven to effectively reduce carbon emissions from the construction sector in municipal areas. (4) In severely cold regions, mild regions, and high-population-density cities, the digital economy reduces building sector's carbon output. However, it stimulates carbon emissions in the hot summer and cold winter regions. (5) Mechanism tests show that the digital economy reduces China's urban construction carbon emissions by fostering technological progress and green innovation. Urban resilience further strengthens the contribution of the digital economy to reducing carbon discharges in the urban construction sector of China. This article presents empirical evidence demonstrating how the digital economy empowers the construction industry to curtail emissions.

Research on Low-Carbon Economic Reform of Construction Industry Based on Stacking-IGA Modeling

Low-carbon economy is an economic development model centered on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which has become an inevitable trend in China. Low-carbon economic reform of the construction industry is an important part of China's realization of low-carbon economy, and the key lies in integrating and coordinating the relationship between low-carbon development and economic development of the construction industry. In order to achieve this goal, this paper aims to minimize the carbon emission and maximize the gross output value of the construction industry, and constructs the Stacking-IGA model, which includes data-driven, Stacking integrated model and improved genetic algorithm. First, based on the data-driven and Stacking integration model, the planning problem of low-carbon economic development target of the construction industry is defined. Secondly, the improved genetic algorithm is used to solve the problem. Finally, the Pareto frontier surface is used to provide a reference basis for the low-carbon economic reform of the construction industry. The research results show that the model circumvents the dependence of the traditional objective planning model on the assumption of the objective function and the assumption of the background conditions, and is suitable for uncertainty objective planning modeling and solving. The model shows good results in sample expansion, sample equalization, feature redundancy, model accuracy and stability, objective solving efficiency and solving quality. It is difficult to realize the reduction of carbon emission and the increase of total output value in China's construction industry at the same time, and to realize the reform of low-carbon economy in the construction industry, we should start from the production of building materials and promote the new construction technology at the same time.

Towards a sustainable construction: A newly proposed Tapio-global meta-frontier DEA framework for decoupling China's construction economy from its carbon emissions

Uncovering the decoupling degree and its influencing factors is an important work to look for the carbon abatement and sustainable development in China's construction industry (CCI). To arrive at a solution, we proposed a research framework by taking into account the Tapio decoupling model and biased directional distance function based on global meta-frontier DEA, so as to reveal out the motive force and resistance that can help decouple construction industry economy from its carbon emissions. Discussion results indicate that during the sample period: (1) China's construction economy and carbon emissions exhibited weak decoupling. The advances of energy/production technology were two dominant factors in helping construction economy decoupled from carbon emissions, while construction economic activity exerted the largest effects in impeding decoupling process. (2) The decoupling degree and driving effects differed significantly in three regions. Regional energy/production technology disparity narrowed in central and western region, and further contributed to their decoupling. Energy-biased and output-biased scale change exerted impeding effects on the decoupling in eastern and central region, while exerted diametrically opposite effects on western region's decoupling. Besides, the change of energy/production resource allocation efficiency in eastern and western region acted motivating effects in their decoupling, while formed restriction in central region's decoupling.

Development of a digital transformation maturity model for the construction industry

PurposeDigital transformation is crucial for achieving high-quality development in the construction industry. Assessing the industry's digital maturity is an urgent necessity. The Digital Transformation Maturity Model is a potential tool to systematically evaluate the digital maturity levels of various industries. However, most existing models predominantly focus on sectors such as the Internet and manufacturing, leaving the construction industry comparatively underrepresented. This study aims to address this gap by developing a maturity model tailored specifically for digital transformation within the construction industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study leverages the Capability Maturity Theory and integrates the unique characteristics of the construction industry to construct a comprehensive maturity model for digital transformation. The model comprises five critical dimensions: industry environment, strategy and organization, digital infrastructure, business process and management digitization, and digital performance. These dimensions encompass a total of 25 assessment indexes. To validate the model's feasibility and effectiveness, a digital transformation maturity assessment was conducted within China's construction industry.FindingsThe results of the maturity assessment within the Chinese construction industry reveal that it currently operates at the third level of digital maturity (defined level). The industry's maturity score stands at 2.329 out of 5. This outcome indicates that the developed model is accurate and reliable in assessing the level of digital transformation maturity within the construction industry.Originality/valueThis paper contributes both practical and theoretical insights to the field of digital transformation within the construction industry. By creating a tailored maturity model, it addresses a significant gap in existing research and offers a valuable tool for assessing and advancing digital maturity levels within this industry.

Strategic Cosmopolitanism: Chinese Female Jadeite Live Streamers in Ruili

With China's construction of free trade zones and the development of digital technology, immigrants from Myanmar and internal migrants from all parts of China have gathered in Ruili, a cross-border hub connecting the two countries. As a result of these mobilities it has been transformed into a grass-roots level cosmopolitan area. Through six years of fieldwork, this study found that grassroots female live streamers who were excluded from mainstream metropolises gained more opportunities for survival and development in jadeite cross-border trade activities in Ruili through the concepts of female entrepreneurship and everyday strategic cosmopolitanism The notion of strategic cosmopolitanism refers to non-elite openness as a strategic response to economic, employment or career advancements generated by policies, discursively presented as economic cosmopolitanism. The increase in economic gains for some has significantly improved their socio-economic status, while at the same time paying the price of being locked in the logic and rules of capitalism.

Spatio-temporal patterns and impact mechanisms of CO2 emissions from China's construction industry under urbanization

The construction industry fuels China's rapid urbanization, which also escalates carbon emissions. This study aims to investigate the spatio-temporal patterns and impact mechanisms of construction carbon emissions (CCE) under urbanization to inform low-carbon policies. We investigate the spatial heterogeneity and temporal trends of China's CCE employing the carbon emission coefficient method and the backpropagation neural network, identify various development patterns of CCE under urbanization using the K-means clustering method, and further comprehensively explore the key influencing factors through the logarithmic mean Divisia index decomposition method. Our findings indicate that: (1) CCE presents a notable spatio-temporal polarization and aggregation effect during 2009–2018 in China. Compared with rough development scenario, the green development scenario is predicted to effectively reduce CCE by 5.17 % in 2030. (2) The relationship between urbanization and CCE is revealed to be an “inverted U-shape” and four different development patterns are identified. (3) Overall, the output intensity and structural effect of fixed asset inputs are critical factors contributing to CCE. Importantly, the impact mechanisms of CCE vary under different development patterns. This study provides essential evidence-based information and scientific support for CCE reduction in China, which highlights targeted and tailored strategies for reducing CCE considering different patterns under urbanization.

Enhancing a circular economy for construction and demolition waste management in China: A stakeholder engagement and key strategy approach

China's construction and demolition waste has been substantially increasing due to the country's urbanization. However, since the recycling rate of construction and demolition waste is still much lower in China compared to most developed countries, its construction industry still relies heavily on natural resource consumption and is very much a linear economy. Although a circular economy for construction and demolition waste management has been promoted by the government in recent years, the transition from open-ended to close-looped circularity for construction and demolition waste management strategies have not been fully investigated. This study therefore identifies stakeholder engagement and closed-loop key strategies as part of a circular economy for construction and demolition waste management in China. Integrated approaches are used to achieve the aim of this study including literature review, semi-structured interview, questionnaire survey, and causal loop diagram development. The stakeholder engagement and key strategies were identified through literature review, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire survey, and statistical analysis. A causal loop diagram was then developed to demonstrate the interconnection and causal effect between stakeholders and key strategies. The findings reveal that stakeholder engagement and key strategies are highly interrelated for achieving closed-loop construction and demolition waste management. Government ranks as the most important stakeholder engagement, and improving secondary material quality and value is the most important key strategies. This study provides insights for practitioners and academics alike to help understand the interrelationship between stakeholder engagement and key strategies as part of a circular economy for construction and demolition waste management in China.