Reframing construction within the built environment sector

Abstract

Purpose Official statistics on the output of the construction industry capture on-site activities of contractors and sub-contractors; however, the role of the industry linking suppliers of materials, machinery, products, services and other inputs is also widely recognised. These two views have been called broad and narrow, with the narrow industry defined as on-site work and the broad industry as the supply chain of materials, products and assemblies, and professional services. An argument is made for using the term “built environment sector” (BES) for the broad industry definition of construction. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach Construction industry statistics capture the on-site activities of contractors and sub-contractors. This paper reviews research that adds to construction output the contributions of suppliers of materials, machinery and equipment, products and components, professional services and other inputs required to deliver the buildings and structures that make up the built environment. Findings The same term, “construction”, has been used in a number of ways in different definitional studies of the narrow and broad industry. The term that best encompasses the large number and range of participants in the creation and maintenance of the built environment, from suppliers to end users, is the BES. Research limitations/implications Construction economics makes an important contribution to researching the macroeconomic role of the BES. There is also a special role for construction economics in researching both the boundaries of the BES and the data available on the industries that contribute to the BES. Practical implications Measuring the BES would improve the understanding of its macroeconomic role and significance. Social implications Measuring the BES would contribute to city policies and urban planning. Originality/value The paper proposes a new approach to defining and measuring the industries that contribute to the production, maintenance and management of the built environment. It introduces a new name for the combination of those industries.

Construction delay risk taxonomy, associations and regional contexts

“…There are different perceptions towards the construction industry and how this industry and its boundaries are defined. It might be limited to on-site activities by the contractors, or in its broad definition also involve the supply chain of materials, equipment, products and human resources (de Valence, 2019). The broad definition of the construction industry including the on-site activities as well as the supply chain supporting the construction works has been adopted in this research.…”

Antecedents of “power” and “dependence” in the context of collaborations in construction projects: a systematic literature review

“…Clarity of any procurement decision based on bargaining power is influenced by: main contractor's market knowledge (Mahamid, 2017;Melese et al, 2017); Supply chain management priority and value of the product or service to the main contractor (Perez et al, 2016;De Valence, 2018); and Buyer-supplier relationship Co-operation, risk perception demand forecasting mechanism of the main contractor (Walker et al, 2017;Xue et al, 2017;Yang et al, 2017) Project partnering Decision-making, performance improvement, resources, risk perception Market structure "Market structure"-based bargaining is influenced by: competitors offering similar services (Wang et al, 2016;Børve et al, 2017;Kerkhove and Vanhoucke, 2017); Project partnering Decision-making availability of credible substitutes for products and services being offered (Love et al, 2019;Lu et al, 2017); Opportunism scarce products (Thunberg et al, 2017;Walker et al, 2017); and Opportunism entry barriers for new sub-contractors (Thunberg et al, 2017;Walker et al, 2017;Kapogiannis and Sherratt, 2018;Noorizadeh et al, 2019) Power regimes…”

Construction industry classification systems: Defining the construction sector in New Zealand

“…As CanConstrucNZ is going to develop a system to model sector capacity, it takes the broader definition, which encompasses construction production, professional services, and other related services involved in the entire life cycle of constructed facilities, from manufacturing materials to demolition and disposal at the end of its life cycle. The construction sector approach is a new framework for construction statistics [14]. According to Carassus et al, this approach creates new boundaries for the construction statistics, which is made of three groups of activities as below [12]:…”

“…Carassus et al compared the construction sector and the construction industry in terms of employment in nine countries and found that the construction sector's employment is also more than twice as large [16]. Interestingly, indirect contributions of construction activities to other parts of the economy is much greater than their direct contributions [14]. For these reasons, reviewing existing classification systems would be necessary to develop a more appropriate system for measuring the construction sector size and value.…”