Networks in the construction industry: Emerging regulation procedures in the production process

This paper highlights interfirm relationships within the French and UK Construction Industries, focusing on the latest organisational form to emerge: partnering. A comparative overview of the Industry reveals similarities in the development of the two national industries with variations related to the players' influence and structural roles within their respective construction processes. The Industry's fragmentation, generated by the main contractors' merchanting role and their positions of power, and by changing market conditions over the past 20 years, has created imbalances in production conditions. These dysfunctions can, in part, be attributed to the disappearance of informal regulation procedures, based on traditional codes of practice, linking contributors to a construction project. An emerging organisational form - partnering - provides the basis for an overall reassessment of the relationships between clients, designers, engineers, main contractors and subcontractors. Three case studies are used to explore examples of partnering implementation and, in the case of the French study, the reasons for its failure. This qualitative research emphasises the importance of renewing the regulation procedures between the contributors to the construction process. Finally, evolutionary theories provide some useful concepts to help understand the UK and French pioneering construction companies' approaches to network creation and management.