Competitiveness of Turkish Contractors in International Markets

Date

2000-09-08

Author

Birgönül, Mustafa Talat
Dikmen Toker, İrem

Metadata

Show full item record

Item Usage Stats

156
views

0
downloads

After 1990, there has been a huge growth in the volume of international construction services of Turkish contractors which may be explained by the serious recession in the domestic construction market. As of 2000, Turkish contractors have been working in 49 countries in 4 continents. The aim of this paper is to present findings of a survey conducted to investigate mainly, the sources of competitive advantage and globalisation strategies of Turkish contractors in international markets. 61 construction companies, majority of which are members of the Union of International Contractors (UIC) responded the aforementioned survey. The survey results demonstrate that Turkish contractors have limited geographical diversification and they achieve competitive advantage by a focus strategy based on low factor costs. Cultural, lingual and religious familiarity also constitutes a major national comparative advantage in target markets. Their risk taking abilities and references based on prior success as well as low cost of labour constitute their major strengths. However, advantages due to basic costs are often easy to imitate and some innovative strategies are compulsory to sustain competitive advantage. Within the scope of this paper, better financial engineering, diversification and effective risk mitigation strategies such as forming strategic alliances are proposed as ways to differentiate construction services in international markets.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/75365
https://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/ar2000-095-104_Birgonul_and_Ozdogan.pdf

Conference Name

16th Annual ARCOM Conference, (6-8 September 2000)

Collections

Department of Civil Engineering, Conference / Seminar

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Risks Borne by Foreign Contractors Doing Business in Turkey Birgönül, Mustafa Talat; Dikmen Toker, İrem (2001-09-07) In parallel to the increased demand for infrastructure projects, the number of foreign construction companies working in the Turkish construction market has increased considerably starting from the 1990s. Although Turkish construction market is known to be among the markets that have the highest growth potential, Turkey’s high risk rating shadows its attractiveness for foreign investors. As well as the necessity of foreign contractors to effectively manage the country risks, they also face with the challeng...
Investigation of Wind Effects on Tall Buildings through Wind Tunnel Testing Kurç, Özgür; Shojaee, S. M. Nima; Uzol, Oğuz (2012-10-01) There has been significant increase in tall building construction in Turkey in the last decade. As the height of building increase, wind effects become more pronounced. Wind can interact with flexible buildings and can significantly magnify the wind loads and wind induced oscillations. Wind tunnel tests have been widely utilized for estimating the wind effects on buildings. In order to perform a successful test, however, flow conditions inside the tunnel must represent the actual conditions rather closely. ...
Political Economy of Renewal of Heritage Places in Turkey Özçakır, Özgün; Bilgin Altınöz, Ayşe Güliz; Mignosa, Anna (2018-01-01) The construction industry has often been used to boost the economy in time of crises and constitutes one of the most important profit making sector in Turkey. As a result of the current economic growth model which focuses on construction activities, urban spaces have been subjected to uncontrollable pressure in Turkey. Hence, developing new construction land and increasing construction rights in existing settlement areas have become common among local and central authorities in the last years. As priceless ...
A Study on the price escalation system in public construction contracts in Turkey Ercan, Muhammed; Dikmen Toker, İrem; Birgönül, Mustafa Talat; Department of Civil Engineering (2017) The construction industry has a major role in the development of Turkish economy. The construction sector contributes 6-8 % of the gross domestic product of Turkey. At the same time, public investments comprise an important portion in the Turkish construction sector. Medium to large construction projects generally take over a year for completion and cost of materials and labor that are used as resources in construction projects often increase during implementation of construction projects. On the other hand...
Determination of Quality Level in Mass Housing Projects in Turkey KAZAZ, AYNUR; Birgönül, Mustafa Talat (American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2005-02-01) In Turkey, achievement of acceptable levels of quality in the construction sector has long been a problem. Great expenditures of time, money, and resources are wasted each year due to inefficient or nonexistent quality levels prevailing in the industry. The situation is even worse in the case of mass housing projects addressing to low and middle income groups. It is the purpose of this paper to identify the type of deviations resulting in rework in mass housing projects, since construction firms can only in...

Citation Formats

M. T. Birgönül and İ. Dikmen Toker, “Competitiveness of Turkish Contractors in International Markets,” presented at the 16th Annual ARCOM Conference, (6-8 September 2000), Glasgow, UK, 2000, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/75365.