Competitiveness in the construction industry: A contractor’s perspective on barriers to improving the construction industry performance

Competitiveness is a complex domain with multiple perspectives and a vast range of definitions, meanings, and measures. Therefore, it is challenging to create an appropriate framework to evaluate the competitiveness of an ever-changing and evolving construction industry. This study captures the contractor’s perspectives about the competitiveness of the Pakistani construction industry, underlines the key factors affecting its performance, and proposes a framework for enhancing competitiveness. The proposed framework identifies the areas for improvement and contributes to the development of strategies for adoption. To achieve this, a qualitative approach is adopted which captures the opinion of contractors about the competitiveness and its perception and analyzes it through the fuzzy approach. The results based on 25 expert interviews highlight that the recruitment of well-trained human resource and cutting-edge technologies, the collaboration between academia and industry, investment in R&D projects, and a stable business environment contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the construction industry and should be adopted to enhance the current state of practice. The study has perks for both academia and industry and requires active participation from both counterparts as well as supply chain actors and regulatory bodies to achieve the holistic goals.