Dynamics of construction industry development

Construction industry performance levels have not risen in line with expectations of many recent reform initiatives worldwide. Institutional inertia and difficulties in shifting adversarial industry culture to collaborative teamworking have been identified as principal root causes of such shortfalls. This chapter probes such 'decelerators' of expected industry improvements in the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong and lessons learned from Australia, the Netherlands, India and Sri Lanka too. This chapter also unearths another fundamental root cause, from a construction economics perspective focusing on national development, which itself needs a reliable and efficient construction industry. For example, lack of work continuity disrupts the development of high-performing construction organisations, personnel and technologies. Therefore, policy-makers are invited to view the construction industry-national economy nexus through a dual macro-micro construction economics 'bifocal lens'. This could, for example, justify providing more alternative work opportunities in public infrastructure augmentation and rehabilitation during troughs in demand for construction.