Impacts of management control mechanisms on the performance of international construction joint ventures: an empirical study

Abstract

PurposeWhile previous studies have focused on identifying management control (MC) mechanisms in international construction joint ventures (ICJVs), the impacts of such MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs remain largely unknown. This study aims to investigate the impacts of MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs hosted in the developing country of Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThrough a comprehensive review of the literature, a theoretical model was developed, and data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 190 project managers composed of Ghanaians/locals and their foreign partners of ICJVs. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsResults showed that both personnel and support and training control mechanisms have a positive and significant impact on project and company/partner performance. Surprisingly, insignificant and negative impacts exist between both mechanisms and socioenvironmental and company/partner performance from the local partners' view, respectively; the reverse is rather true from the foreign partners' perspective.Practical implicationsThis study contributes to the ICJV body of knowledge by analyzing the impacts of MC mechanisms on the ICJVs’ performance, enabling ICJVs frontliners (i.e. top managers) and project managers to better enhance their control structures and the ICJVs’ performance.Originality/valueThis is arguably the first study to take the bipartite perspective rather than the unilateral view of studying the impacts of MC mechanisms on the performance of ICJVs.

Training Model of High-Rise Building Project Management Talent under Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithm

“…At the same time, these personnel are also professional and technical management personnel. These personnel are the main managers of engineering construction, and their management ability will directly affect the safety, progress, quality, and cost of engineering construction, which is related to the survival and development of construction enterprises [19]. Therefore, effective ways must be adopted to train the project managers of high-rise buildings.…”

“…Assume that X and Y are two feasible solutions of management talent training objectives, and each possible solution of management talent training objectives is a ternary vector 𝑥 = (𝑥 1 , 𝑥 2 , 𝑥 3 ) ， 𝑥 1 、 𝑥 2 、 𝑥 3 are three target values (assuming that the bigger the better), then 𝑥 dominant solution𝑦can be defined as the following formula (19): 𝑥 ≻ 𝑦 ⇔ ∀𝑥 𝑖 ≥ 𝑦 𝑖 , ∃𝑖{1,2,3}, 𝑥 𝑖 > 𝑦 𝑖 (19) In Formula ( 19), the non-dominant solution is defined as that any other individual does not dominate an individual, that is, for other management personnel training target individuals, the result of one goal of the management personnel training target individual is always better than other individuals (excluding duplicate individuals).…”

Developing a multidimensional performance measurement framework for international construction joint ventures (ICJVs): the perspective of Ghana-hosted ICJVs' practitioners

“…Based on the records maintained by the GIPC, a list of 134 ICJV projects, was identified, as of December 2021. It is important to mention that participants usually have hazy memories of past events, thus, it was reasonable to collect data from ICJVs dissolved for not more than a decade or still active (e.g., Ali et al 2021;Tetteh et al 2022). Considering the nature of ICJV -"complete and disperse" -limiting direct access or connection to respondents, alongside the habitually low response rate in the construction industry, all the 134 ICJV projects were targeted for the survey (Zhang and Qian, 2017).…”