Publisher's Synopsis
This volume provides an introduction to the current debates within construction management thinking, about how to improve corporate performance by the use of alternative ways of managing buyer and supplier relationships in construction supply chains and markets. It introduces the relationship marketing and partnership sourcing schools of thinking about collaborative ways of improving corporate performance, through more collaborative ways of working between buyers and suppliers. This approach is contrasted with the power and leverage perspective. This later school argues that collaboration can only be implemented successfully under certain power regime circumstances, and that corporate performance can only be improved if buyers and or suppliers are aware of the full range of sourcing and relationship management options, available to both parties in exchange relationships. The discussion is informed by 16 detailed case studies of alternative forms of proactive and reactive relationship management in construction, with very different win or lose outcomes.;These reveal that, while some participants in construction supply chains and markets, do adopt all of the major sourcing approaches available to them, this does not mean that any one approach to construction management is necessarily superior to others. There are many examples here of poor relationship management whether proactive collaborative or more reactive arms-length ways of working are adopted. The book concludes with a discussion of how managers might think about appropriateness, and apply this way of thinking to a more effective selection of sourcing and relationship management options in the future.
