K. Hampson et Cb. Tatum, TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY AND COMPETITIVE PERFORMANCE IN BRIDGE CONSTRUCTION, Journal of construction engineering and management, 123(2), 1997, pp. 153-161
Citations number
24
Categorie Soggetti
Construcion & Building Technology","Engineering, Civil","Engineering, Industrial
Pragmatic construction professionals, accustomed to intense price comp
etition and focused on the bottom line, have difficulty justifying inv
estments in advanced technology. Researchers and industry professional
s need improved tools to analyze how technology affects the performanc
e of the firm. This paper reports the results of research to begin ans
wering the question, ''does technology matter?'' The researchers devel
oped a set of five dimensions for technology strategy, collected infor
mation regarding these dimensions along with four measures of competit
ive performance in five bridge construction firms, and analyzed the in
formation to identify relationships between technology strategy and co
mpetitive performance. Three technology strategy dimensions-competitiv
e positioning, depth of technology strategy and organizational fit-sho
wed particularly strong correlations with the competitive performance
indicators of absolute growth in contract awards and contract award va
lue per technical employee. These findings indicate that technology do
es matter. The research also provides ways to analyze options for appr
oaching technology and ways to relate technology to competitive perfor
mance for use by managers. It also provides a valuable set of research
measures for technology strategy.