Agglomeration and Competitive Position of Contractors in the International Construction Sector

Abstract

The international construction sector is an important contributor to international economic cooperation, and the past 30 years have witnessed the increase of business revenues and involved countries of the Engineering News Record's (ENR) top 250 or 225 international contractors (TICS 250) in the global market. Competitive positioning and market selection have a significant influence on contractors' development of their international sectors. This study establishes quantitative approaches for estimating the competitive position of contractors between different periods and in different sectors. The location quotient is adopted to evaluate the agglomeration level of contractors in different construction industries. The diversified changes of contractor clusters in nine different industries from 13 countries collected from the ENR are analyzed to highlight the differences in their agglomeration levels from 2009 to 2013. A competitive position matrix model is presented for international contractors in the global market as the location quotient and competitive position matrix, as novel assessment methods are effective in quantitatively analyzing the difference in agglomeration levels between typical contractor groups and the competitive statements of international contractors. Contractors can benefit from the proposed approaches as an aid to understanding their competitive position and developing appropriate strategies in the overseas arena.