The purpose of this study is to identify the essential elements required for innovation in the construction industry. To this end, the authors assessed the innovation at three…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to identify the essential elements required for innovation in the construction industry. To this end, the authors assessed the innovation at three levels: the firm growth account level, the firm behaviour level and the level of the firm’s experts. The factors influencing innovation at each level were identified and synthesised into guiding strategies for innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Three methods were combined to develop a mode of thinking for innovation. First, at the semi-macro level, the authors identified the factors that influence the total factor productivity (TFP) by regressing the TFP across firms of the construction industry on a variety of extrinsic factors. Second, at the firm level, the authors extracted actual innovative firms from a large amount of public procurement individual data. The authors analysed the behaviours of these innovative firms. Third, the authors conducted a survey of expert-level personnel. In addition, a text analysis was performed to determine what was perceived by experts as a factor that leads to innovation.
Findings
The authors analysed the TFP, the behaviour of innovative firms and the perception issues between industry experts and stakeholders regarding innovation. As a result, two factors were identified. The first factor was the expectation of a positive solution to the problem through monopoly profits, future benefits and increased efficiency. The second factor was peer pressure from other organisations of a similar nature, peer pressure from users and technical information, as well as competitive conditions, e.g. recent environmental growth, including relevant innovations.
Practical implications
In the context of innovation, static and dynamic thinking were important requirements. Static concepts were based on the accumulation of knowledge, such as patents and technological progress. Dynamic thinking involved a future outlook, including a competitive environment as a necessary condition. Actual technological innovation was driven by incentives and expectations.
Social implications
According to the results of this study, the authors make the following recommendations for enhancing the construction-industry innovation in Japan: do not rely on a patent policy to drive innovation, create an environment that encourages competition and develop an ongoing initiative that encourages and rewards innovation.
Originality/value
This study was novel, in that the nature of innovation was investigated at three levels: the TFP, firm behaviour and expert perceptions. The identification and extraction of the two resulting points – statically necessary and dynamically necessary elements – was a significant contribution of the study.
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The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between the geographic market size of businesses and the competitiveness of being able to bid at low prices.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between the geographic market size of businesses and the competitiveness of being able to bid at low prices.
Design/methodology/approach
The design of this study is based on a natural experiment approach. Firstly, after controlling for the firm size and other factors, the author sees that firms participating in bidding in a large region are more competitive to bid at lower prices than firms doing business in a smaller region. The author then tests for causality in a natural experiment of the exogenous event.
Findings
The results show that firms participating in the bidding process in a large area are more competitive to bid at lower prices than firms doing business in a small area. This is tested in a natural experiment, and the result is that they are more competitive because they do business in a larger area.
Practical implications
The practical implication is that, when aiming for competitiveness, it is most important to consider the nature of the business and to see the essence of the business, for example, that networks are important in the construction industry, and that doing business over a wide area is the way to become competitive.
Social implications
The social implications are that to make firms more competitive, we must look at the characteristics of the industry and come up with policies that fit the reality, such as encouraging them to do business in a wide area.
Originality/value
The originality of this study is that this study viewed competitiveness as being able to bid low prices for public procurement and found that doing business in a wide area is competitive. Furthermore, the causal effect of the study was to test the fact that doing business in a wide area does not mean doing business in a wide area because it is competitive, but that doing business in a wide area creates a competitive advantage.
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The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the relationship between price and quality in public procurement by using data on the quality of civil engineering works and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to try to understand the relationship between price and quality in public procurement by using data on the quality of civil engineering works and prices in tenders. By doing so, it tries to conduct a comprehensive examination of the quality of construction works, which has been difficult to recognize and evaluate.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of this analysis is to collect data on the quality of construction works from the rankings of construction performance evaluations revealed by public procurement authorities. In addition, the prices of bids of the providers in public procurement are also collected from the available data and analyzed. The relationship between the two was statistically analyzed in an objective and verifiable way.
Findings
What the study found was that the price of the work measured by the bid rate had a positive and significant relationship with the quality of the work measured by the construction performance rating. Furthermore, the panel data were analyzed using panel data for 51 firms that all appeared in the construction performance evaluation for 12 years and participated in at least three bids in each year, and the first-order term of the bid rate was negative and the second-order term was positive and was 10% significant, which is a U-shaped relationship.
Research limitations/implications
This study is one of the investigations focused on public procurement construction work. One of the limitations of this study is that it is a study of one industry in the Asian region. However, this study focuses on the incentives of business operators. As such, the analysis is applicable to all situations faced by those running businesses.
Practical implications
The managerial implications of this study include the following: although, improving the quality of construction results is costly, competitive firms are also steadily improving their quality as it is a factor of competition. However, there will come a point where their efforts come to a halt at a certain level. It is necessary to operate the business with this situation in mind. In addition to the company's efforts, it is necessary to lobby the government.
Social implications
As a policy implication for this analysis, it was possible to evaluate that steady improvement in construction results was confirmed, but the correlation between the relaxation of the competition and the increase in the bid rate was correlated with the decrease in the total amount of public works. This highlights the problem of having to think about measures for the efficient use of the. In addition to this, the fact that the competition situation has been eased can be considered as a problem that it will adversely affect the innovation stimulation of operators, and that it will become necessary to pay more attention to competition limiting acts.
Originality/value
The uniqueness of this paper is firstly that unique data representing the quality of public procurement, which had been difficult to analyze, were collected, organized and used in the study. In addition, not only did we find a positive relationship between quality and price but we also found a U-shaped relationship between them using panel data.
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Emi Moriuchi and Paul R. Jackson
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of brand names and product types on bicultural’s purchasing intention. In cross-cultural marketing, a current popular position…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of brand names and product types on bicultural’s purchasing intention. In cross-cultural marketing, a current popular position among bicultural consumer advocates that brand name that has a foreign character denotes that when an unknown brand is present, and if the unknown brand is a hedonic product, then a foreign character that has a long-standing history of delivery quality products should be mandatory.
Design/methodology/approach
Through a multidisciplinary literature review, qualitatively supported differences in bicultural consumers from a majority-minority status are reviewed and formulated as hypotheses, and a survey is used to collect quantitative data from a stratified random sample.
Findings
A 2 (cultural identity vs felt ethnicity) × 2 (English brand name vs Japanese brand name) factorial experiment, which tested this contention, revealed that, although consumers are considered biculturals, they will be more inclined to perceive products to be of higher quality when the product is written in Japanese than in English. Furthermore, the result shows that felt ethnicity has a significant impact on attitude toward brand names, whereas bicultural’s cultural identity does not. However, on the other hand, cultural identity has a significant impact on the product type considered, whereas felt ethnicity does not.
Research limitations/implications
As a starting point for understanding the bicultural consumer from a majority-minority perspective, this study is subject to exploratory research limitations.
Practical implications
The result suggests that when developing ads, managers should take into account the effect of language characters has on their target audience’s ethnicity. As it is common for ads to consist of written language, colors, images and messages, managers should not just concentrate on one, rather should consider how all these factors can come together and create a favorable ad.
Originality/value
As the number of immigrants increase in the USA, the notion of considering what a melting pot is has reached another level. Predicted by the US census, in the year 2050, the minority population will take over the mainstream population, resulting in a majority-minority status for these minority individuals. Businesses will then have to redesign their strategy in marketing to this new market segment and not fall victim to these new challenges. They can turn around and leverage them as marketplace opportunities. This study provides some early insights that can help marketers strategically and creatively think of leverage such opportunities.