Theoretical And Applied Research On Construction Project Based Organizational Populations Ecology

The construction project based organizations such as enterprises of engineering surveying and design or construction companies are tending to be diversified in Chinese mainland. This shows the phenomena of birth, growth or decline and structural evolvement of organizations. The basic theory of the construction project based organizational ecology is studied in this paper. In order to reveal laws and mechanisms of interaction of intra- and inter-population or between organizational populations and their environments, phenomena of the construction project based organizational populations ecology are expounded and analyzed. The study provide basis for working out the industry plan and directing the industry running according to the laws of organizational ecology. Main research results contain:(1) The basic theoretic framework of the construction project based organizational ecology is formed. The ecological characteristics and the meaning of ecological study of the construction project based organizational population are defined. By comparing the research scope and units of analysis about organizational ecology with project management theory, the positions of its ecological study located in correlative subjects are clarified. It is demonstrated that the units of analysis of organizational research in the field of project management should be expanded to five hierarchy structures. These are a project group or a projectized organization, a project-based organization, project stakeholders, a project-based organizational population and a community. It is indicated that units of analysis of the construction project based organizational ecology include an organizational population and a community. It is suggested that the core content of the ecological study is to find the ecological characteristics of the construction project based organizational population, the interactional laws and mechanisms between the organizational populations and their environments. The theoretic framework lays a foundation not only for studying the diversification and ecological characteristics of construction project based organizations on the level of a population or a community, but also for promoting the integration of knowledge types between subjects.(2) By the use of methods of organizational population and community ecology, the mode of growth of four types of the population of China's private, joint-stock, collective and state-owned construction enterprises and models containing interaction relations between the populations concerned are studied. The results show that the scale growth rate of the populations rises with the increase in the density. When the population density is greater than the carrying capacity, the population growth rate declines with further increases in density. The growth rate of the new populations (private, joint-stock) drops with the rise of the scale. The growth rate of old populations (collective and state-owned) expresses negative growth and the greater the population scale, the faster the attenuation. There is not only diversity but also similarity in the growth modes between different populations or those between the populations of the same category distributed in varied areas. The growth rate of each construction enterprise population not only depends on comprehensive impacts such as characteristics of its own density, scale etc. and other factors, but is subjected to the influences of the density of other construction enterprise populations within the community as well; in addition, there is a predatory competition relation between new construction enterprise populations and original construction enterprise populations. The study shows that the evolutionary pattern of the community structure of China's construction industry is dependent on the traits of populations forming the community, the nature and intensity of the interaction between populations, and the manner of interaction between populations and their environments. The legitimizing, competition and the efficiency mechanism are effective mechanisms to make structures of these populations and communities evolve. The study works out laws and mechanisms of the growth of construction project based organizational populations and the evolvement of industrial structure, and provide basis on which to forecast the way of the evolvement of the enterprise populations.(3) It is verified that the dynamics of niche structure of the construction project based specific organizations is the result of resource-partitioning process in its institutional environment. The dynamics of niche structure of the general and specialized enterprise population of engineering surveying and design in Chinese mainland is studied with the method to compare and analyze variables of the niches. The results show that many general engineering surveying and design enterprises in the industry occupy the dominant position in the resources of the community, but the occupancy ratio of the resources decreases with dimensionality of the resources space. Nevertheless, specialized engineering surveying and design enterprises feature dynamic vigor contrary to general engineering surveying and design enterprises. The current qualification management system partitioned by industries deviates from the law of resource-partitioning of market. It is not only unfavorable to the growth of the specialized surveying and design enterprises, but also to the fostering of large general surveying and design enterprises. The resource-partitioning phenomenon of the industry (architecture, engineering & related services) in America is further analyzed. It is shown that the quantity distributing characteristics of seven populations forming the industry accord with the viewpoint of resource-partitioning basically. The study indicates that populations of engineering surveying and design enterprises have their respective identity in the community evolvement and the degree of their resource-partitioning is different in each dimensionality of their resources. The research provides basis on which to plan and run the qualification management and the corresponding administration system that help the engineering surveying and design enterprise populations to form the rational niche structure, and better the whole productivity of the enterprise populations.