Yüklenici firmaların rekabeti: İş çevresi bağlamı.

Competitiveness is a multi defined term which can be applied to firms, industries, and nations. Different definitions of competitiveness can be found in literature due to the fact that the term fulfils different meanings at different levels. More comprehensively, D'Cruz and Rugman (1992) define competitiveness at firm level as "the ability of a firm to design, to produce and or market products superior to those offered by competitors, considering the price and non price qualities". A quick review of the management literature reveals that there exist various understandings when dealing with an intricate concept like competitiveness. Consequently a number of theories and theoretical frameworks have been developed to investigate the competitiveness of firms. These theories can be classified into two groups according to their focus points: (i) theories associated with the internal environment of the firm such as resource based, competence based and knowledge based competitiveness theories, and (ii) theories focusing on the external environment of the firm such as industrial organization competitiveness theory. Firms operating in the construction industry are facing more and more risks due to the worldwide globalization trends and rapidly changing, unpredictable, -sometimes- unstable, and complex environments. Considering the intensity of the competitiveness in the construction industry, today it is clear that focusing on low cost production alone might be inadequate to survive in highly competitive markets. This paradigm shift within the construction industry has revealed the need for a comprehensive understanding of the environments of the construction firms, especially for the firms who seek to gain competitive advantage. Moreover understanding their competitive behavior is of particular importance to create an environment with common sustainable practices. This change caused a rapid increase in the number of research studies focusing on construction competitiveness in the Construction and Project Management (CPM) field. However the research studies in the literature focusing on construction competitiveness are mostly adopted from management field, therefore reflecting the dynamics of the manufacturing industry. … [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]