Measuring construction industry competitiveness: A holistic approach

The link between competitiveness and sustained prosperity of a nation, industry or firm, is a well established argument and serves as the basis for making policy decisions and directing strategic change. The importance of construction industry competitiveness is currently receiving considerable attention from countries such as Finland, Sweden and the UK. This paper critically reviews the existing measures of competitiveness, challenges productivity and profitability as the dominant measures of construction industry competitiveness and introduces a more holistic set of measures that addresses the needs of investors, employees, clients and overall society. The research also reports upon the application of this more holistic set of measures for measuring competitiveness and presents results for the Swedish construction industry. The paper principally sets out to present the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project, which will eventually compare the competitiveness of the Swedish construction industry with that of Finland and the UK.

The construction industry and its resources: a research agenda

The desirable coverage of the journal is considered including the need to focus on research which can lead to positive action. Criteria for establishing the desirability of research projects are proposed and these are then applied first, to four broad issues and, secondly, to the inputs and other requirements for a well functioning industry. Some conclusions are drawn as to the research most likely to enable action to be taken to improve the industry. It is found that certain other difficulties can sometimes be dealt with by experimentation with actual projects or, where there is consensus on desirable action, by bringing pressure to bear on those able to initiate change.