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The authors provide new quantitative evidence of the relationship between technologies and organizational design in the context of complex one-off products. The systems that produce complex, one-off products in mature, fragmented industries such as construction lack many of the typical organizational features that researchers have deemed critical to product development success (e.g., team familiarity, frequent communication, and strong leadership). In contrast, the complexity of these products requires a diverse knowledge base that is rarely found within a single firm. The one-off nature of construction’s products further requires improvization and development by a distributed network of highly specialized teams. And because the product is complex, significant innovations in the end product require systemic shifts in the product architecture. Riitta Katila, Raymond E. Levitt and Dana Sheffer use an original, hand-collected dataset of the design and construction of 112 energy-efficient “green” buildings in the United States, combined with in-depth fieldwork, to study these questions. A key conclusion is that the mature US construction industry, with its particularly fragmented supply chain, is not well suited to implementing “systemic innovations” that require coordination across trades or stages of the project. However, project integration across specialists with the highest levels of interdependence (i.e., craft, contract integration) mitigates the knowledge and coordination problems. There are implications for research on how technology shapes organizations (and particularly how organizations shape technology), and on the supply chain configuration strategies of firms in the construction industry as well as building owners who are seeking to build the best buildings possible within their budgets.

At the beginning of the nineties, the Danish construction market was in the midst of a severe slump (Eurostat, 1995). At the same time, the German market was beginning to boom, due to the process of unifying the two German states (European Construction Research, 1995). Because of the poor home market circumstances, many Danish construction industry actors, including individual architects and architectural firms, attempted to find work in Germany (Halskov, 1995). However, the aspirations of most of these actors were dashed. By 1996, many of the largest Danish civil engineering and contracting firms had lost billions of Danish kroner, and a great number of small firms, typically architectural firms or subcontractors in the construction process, had also experienced severe losses, some of which had jeopardized the very existence of these firms (ibid.). This turn of events surprised both insiders in the Danish construction industry and the general Danish population as both groups believed that Denmark has high construction standards and that the most of the firms that had attempted operations in Germany were technically competent and had sound domestic business policies.

The challenges confronting the Nigerian construction industry which led to the adoption of supply chain management (SCM) practice were evaluated in this chapter. It was discovered that the Nigerian construction industry is confronted with fragmentation and poor information management. The stakeholders within the Nigerian construction industry proposed the adoption of SCM to overcome the fragmentation and other shenanigans facing the industry. This chapter revealed that construction supply chain (CSC) practices within the Nigerian construction industry focus on waste elimination by adopting the lean concept. The focus on the lean concept could be attributed to the numerous research related to lean or the enormous waste emanating from the Nigerian construction industry. Regardless of the emphasis on lean, the Nigerian CSC is still confronted with fragmentation and heavy waste generation. Thus, this chapter proposed the adoption of principles and technologies driven by the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) is a paradigm shift for the management of CSC in the country. It was discovered in this chapter that Nigerian construction supply stakeholders had not embraced the technologies and principles of the 4IR. The failure to adopt the technologies driven by the 4IR is attributed to the absence of a CSC model that depicts the management of CSC in alignment with the 4IR. This chapter called for developing a SCM model for the Nigerian construction industry in tandem with the principles and technologies of the 4IR.

This chapter aimed to uncover the gaps in the existing construction supply chain management (CSCM) models. Organisational culture and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) components are the two gaps that were identified through reviewing existing CSCM models. The 4IR is driven by three components which are smart management, virtualisation and cyber-physical system. It was proposed in this chapter that the practice of CSCM should be in tandem with the components of 4IR. This chapter recommended that for the effective practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the 4IR era, construction stakeholders should adopt an innovative and collaborative organisational culture. The organisational culture adopted by a construction firm performs a crucial role in encouraging construction stakeholders in adopting 4IR components for CSCM. Each of the 4IR components is driven by technologies like autonomous robots, building information modelling (BIM), radio frequency identification (RFID), the internet of things (IoT) and others. Among all the technologies, it was discovered that RFID and BIM had gained prominence in most CSC literature. The chapter recommended that blockchain, digital twins and the cyber-physical system are the next trending technology for CSCM.

Value for money (VfM) is a concept widely recognized by many even beyond the field of the built environment. A concept known as value management (VM) is one of its kind that construction professionals and clients employ towards achieving vVfM. This study critically examined the VM practices of the construction sector of Northern Cyprus. The first section introduced what value management is from various professionals views and the concept behind it. The second aspect of this work looked at VM considering various expert research on the field. The third section looked at how VM is practised in Northern Cyprus. The result shows that VM practice is still in its infancy even though some construction companies or firms have adopted the process for some of their projects. The term value management is not common among the construction professionals in Northern Cyprus, but instead, they are more familiar with what they called ‘job plan’.

The prevalent practice of construction supply chain (CSC) in developing countries with a focus on Africa was presented in this chapter. Two African countries (South Africa and Ghana) were selected due to the extensive literature on the CSC emanating from the countries. The impediment to the effective management of the CSC in the two African countries was also examined in this chapter. It was discovered that the vital inhibition to the performance of CSC in developing countries is the adoption of culture from developed countries without a proper model for ensuring its implementation in developing countries. Also, no model has incorporated the principles and technologies of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) to manage the CSC. The failure to adopt the 4IR technologies like block chain, big data and the internet of things has prevented the proper application of CSC practices in developing countries. CSC practices like collaboration, integration, lean supply chain, information sharing, financial management and communication are the primary practice in developing countries. Finally, this chapter called for the development of a model for managing the CSC in developing countries in alignment with the principles of the 4IR.

The model and existing practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia was presented in this chapter. The policies and reports that support the practice of the CSC were examined in both countries. It was discovered from the review of literature that the UK has a more detailed report targeted at improving the CSC than Australia. However, both countries have a common factor affecting their CSC which originates from fragmentation experienced within their supply chain. Construction stakeholders in the UK and Australia believe that collaboration and integration are vital components for improving performance. The majority of the contractors in both countries embrace collaborative working for the sole purpose of risk sharing, access to innovation and response to market efficiency. However, most of the models developed for managing the CSC in the UK are built around building information modelling (BIM). Also, the reviewed studies show that supply chain management practice will be effective following the following principle: shared objectives, trust, reduction in a blame culture, joint working, enhanced communication and information-sharing. Finally, the UK has a more established framework and more CSC models compared to Australia.

The paper aims to investigate the prevailing institutional logics that underpin the organisational behaviours of Chinese contractors and the institutional complexity they face across several strategic areas when they undertake projects abroad.

The paper draws mainly on industry literature, reports and government websites to develop a typology of two ideal types of institutional logics that prevail among Chinese international contractors. The configurations of institutional complexity in different strategic areas are analysed through pattern-matching.

Two main logics are identified, namely, construction and investment logics. These logics in turn lead to patterns of volatile complexity in the strategic areas of business, technology, human resources and marketing; patterns of aligned complexity in operational and information technology strategic areas; and patterns of segregated complexity in financial strategic area.

The paper presents an ongoing doctoral research. It provides a preliminary understanding of the institutional logics affecting Chinese international contractors and sets out the first step to understand the relationship between complex institutional environments and organisational responses.

Chinese international contractors commonly face resistance, and at times resentment, from the local industries in the countries they operate. The findings of this paper are a first step towards a better understanding of why this is the case and what can be done to rectify the situation and improve long and short-term project performance.

This paper provides practical implications for Chinese contractors to understand their internal context of institutional complexity and provides the basis for further understanding of Chinese contractors’ strategic responses.

Existing theoretical and empirical evidence is inconclusive concerning the comparative performance of labor-managed firms (LMFs) and conventional firms. By assembling and analyzing new data for a sample of 51 conventional firms and 26 producer cooperatives in the Italian construction industry during the period 1981–1989 we provide additional evidence. Except for organizational form, the cooperatives in our sample are fairly comparable to our conventional firms. Based on our production function estimates, and unlike some previous econometric studies, we find no significant productivity advantage of cooperatives over conventional firms. Our ordinary least squares (OLS) point estimates generally indicated that output would be lower in a cooperative than in an otherwise identical conventional firm. The only statistically significant measure of financial and decision-making participation is collective reserves. We conclude by offering some possible explanations for why our results may differ from some previous findings, especially those for Italian producer cooperatives. In particular we suggest that research methods that are new to the study of cooperatives are needed to help to resolve these questions.

Dynamic relationships between technologies and organizations are investigated through research on digital visualization technologies and their use in the construction sector. Theoretical work highlights mutual adaptation between technologies and organizations but does not explain instances of sustained, sudden, or increasing maladaptation. By focusing on the technological field, I draw attention to hierarchical structuring around inter-dependent levels of technology; technological priorities of diverse groups; power asymmetries and disjunctures between contexts of development and use. For complex technologies, such as digital technologies, I argue these field-level features explain why organizations peripheral to the field may experience difficulty using emerging technology.