Fundamental analysis and conceptual model for corporate strategy in global engineering and construction markets

Strategic management as an academic field of study has spanned over four decades. As an interdisciplinary subject that enjoys concurrent contributions by allied disciplines such as economics and social science, numerous industries have benefited from applying tools and concepts developed within strategic management that are subsequently tailored to match their specific contexts. Strangely, although postured as one of the oldest and largest industries, the construction industry has largely chosen to omit the relevance of the subject in daily business operations. This is especially true in the United States, compared to the British who have embarked on such studies as early as the 1970s. Recent literatures have commented on inadequate management knowledge and systems perspective of civil engineers as they rise through the ranks and shoulder higher responsibilities of management. This is manifested by lackluster performance and failure of several international construction firms sampled in this research, the causes of which were least attributed to technical engineering issues and project management aspects. This doctoral research aims to bridge the knowledge gap in strategy and formulates a conceptual model suited for construction. Twenty-four large international construction firms originating in the U.S., Europe and Japan are selected for the study. Fundamental analysis, a common methodology used in economics and investment studies, forms the quantitative approach to extract information from publicly available data. The theoretical foundation is then drawn from the intellect of different schools of strategic thought that have accumulated over the years.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Cheah, Yuen Jen, 1972-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John B. Miller.

• Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/8163

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/8163