Conceptualising the nexus of projects, finance and capacity in construction business

Arun BAJRACHARYA, Stephen Olu OGUNLANA, Cheng Siew GOH, Hai Chen TAN

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Front. Eng ›› 2018, Vol. 5 ›› Issue (3) : 289-297. DOI: 10.15302/J-FEM-2018021
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Conceptualising the nexus of projects, finance and capacity in construction business

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Abstract

This paper addresses a research question on why construction companies fail in their business. Starting with the concept of growth and capacity underinvestment archetype, a new and operational systems thinking model is developed. The conceptual systems thinking model includes a set of causal structure that can explain various modes (including the growth and failure modes) of business performance of small and medium construction companies. Mainly the three components – projects, finance and capacity – and the understanding of their nexus (or causal inter-relationships) are found to be sufficient to reveal different performance modes in construction business. Further, the three operational aspects, namely, the business growth or decline process; the situation of financial and other capacity resource consumption; and the management of projects, finance and other capacity resources have been identified as the inter-related core and integral aspects of construction business. The three inter-related core aspects could actually include and explain different possible range of business situations, policies and practices in a construction company.

Keywords

performance of construction business / projects / finance / capacity / systems thinking

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Arun BAJRACHARYA, Stephen Olu OGUNLANA, Cheng Siew GOH, Hai Chen TAN. Conceptualising the nexus of projects, finance and capacity in construction business. Front. Eng, 2018, 5(3): 289‒297 https://doi.org/10.15302/J-FEM-2018021

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2018 The Author(s) 2018. Published by Higher Education Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
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