Innovation in Australian Construction

 ABS 2023 survey of business innovation and use of information technology

 

 

The Australian Bureau of Statistics Business Characteristics Survey is an annual survey on business innovation and use of information technology. The 2022-23 survey was recently released, and this post has extracted some of the results for the Construction industry.

 

First a few definitions. The ABS defines innovation as ‘the introduction of a new or significantly improved good or service; operational process; organisational or managerial process; or marketing method.’  Innovation activity is ‘any work that was intended to, or did, result in the introduction of an innovation.’ Firms are divided into innovation active and non-innovation active. An innovation-active business is one that introduced any type of innovation, had an innovation in development or abandoned one in the two years ended 30 June 2023.  An innovating business is one that introduced any type of innovation during the two years. 

 

The Business Characteristics Survey collects data on innovation and digital activities in alternate years, and the 2022-23 survey was on innovation. Approximately 7,000 businesses were surveyed by questionnaire, with a response rate of 82.5 percent [1]. The survey covers a wide range of factors and issues, with the data given by industry, employment size, and state. The data is shown as a percent of businesses within the estimated total number of businesses.

 

Firm Size and Innovation

 

For Construction, 30 percent of businesses introduced a ‘new or significantly improved innovation’ compared to 39 percent of all businesses. However, Construction with 35 percent of innovation active businesses compares poorly to the all industries proportion of 46 percent, and out of all industries Construction has the second lowest proportion of innovation active businesses. 

The difference between large and small employers was significant, with 31 percent of Construction businesses employing 0–4 persons and 43 percent of those employing 5–19 persons innovation active, compared to 79 percent of those employing 20–199 persons and 60 percent of those employing 200 or more persons innovation active. Table 1 shows these proportions are similar for businesses that introduced an innovation or had one under development in 2023. Medium size Construction employers with 20-199 people were most likely to have abandoned an innovation [2]. 

 

Table 1. Innovation status by employment size

 

 

Innovation Activity

 

Innovation active Construction businesses reported better outcomes than non-active ones. As Figure 1 shows, they were more likely to have introduced a new product or service, and their increase in sales, profitability and productivity over the previous year was greater than non-innovation active businesses. The number of innovation active businesses reporting increased profitability and productivity was twice the number of non-active businesses. 

 

Figure 1. Businesses reporting an increase

Source: ABS 8158

 

As a side note, it is interesting that for all construction 21 percent of businesses reported an increase in productivity, and 47 percent no change. There were also 19 percent of businesses with a decrease in productivity, Therefore, the overall industry level ends up without growth as the majority of businesses with decreasing or no growth cancel out the productivity increase in the other one fifth of businesses. The number of SMEs and the low level of innovation in Construction are important factors in the lack of productivity growth [3].

 

There were 13 percent of Construction businesses that introduced a new or improved good or service. Although 31 percent of those innovations were new to Australia or the industry, 75 percent of them were new to the company. Figure 2 shows the percentage shares of that 13 percent of businesses with new or improved goods or services by employment size, with 37 percent of businesses employing 20-199 persons and 25 percent of businesses employing over 200 introducing an innovation. Only 12 and 10 percent of micro and small innovators had an improved good or service. Around half of these goods and services innovations were developed internally. 

 

Construction businesses are three times more likely to introduce a process innovation compared to a new good or service. There were 39 percent of Construction businesses that introduced a new or improved process, of which 3 percent were new to the world. Another 11 percent of those innovations were new to Australia or the industry, and 87 percent of them were new to the company. Figure 2 shows the percentage shares of that 39 percent of businesses with new or improved processes by employment size, with 73 percent of businesses employing 20-199 persons and 62 percent of businesses employing over 200 introducing an innovation. For micro and small firms with a process innovation, the percentage of innovators was 24 and 53 percent respectively. Two thirds of process innovations were developed internally. 

 

Figure 2. Innovation active businesses by type of innovation and size

Source: ABS 8158

 

Although only 15 percent of innovation active businesses reported having an innovation strategy as part of the business plan, 19 percent sought out partners to collaborate with, compared to none and 9 percent for non-active businesses. The main sources of ideas were from within the company (54 percent), clients (36 percent) and suppliers (33 percent), followed by competitors (23 percent), consultants (17 percent) and industry association (13 percent). Only 2 percent reported sourcing ideas from universities, and none reported any research collaboration with universities. 

 

Digitisation and IT

 

Differences in investment in information and communication technology (ICT) capabilities between innovation active and non-active businesses was marked.  Figure 3 shows more innovation active businesses increased expenditure on cyber security, IT and training in 2023, and only 8 percent of non-active businesses increased expenditure on ICT. Significantly, nearly 25 percent of innovation active Construction businesses increased their use of digital technologies but no non-active businesses did, highlighting the growing divide in the industry between those firms that are digitising their operations and those that are not. 

 

Figure 3. Businesses reporting an increase

Source: ABS 8158

 

The weights given to factors considered important for digitisation in construction are generally similar to other industries, particularly in access to skills and capability building. However, there is a greater knowledge gap in construction and less investment in digital technologies compared to all industries, and only 7 percent of Construction businesses had a digital business strategy, compared to 12 percent of all businesses. 

 

 

Figure 4. Digitalisation factors important to the business's innovative activity

Source: ABS 8158

 

 

Benefits and expenditure

 

The benefits of innovation for Construction businesses were found to be similar to other industries, although a reduction in costs was not as common. In Figure 5 there are, however, two benefits where construction businesses did notably better than other industries, in improved safety and environmental benefits. The safety result is no doubt due to the importance of improving safety in one of the most dangerous industries, and with 25 percent of businesses reporting and improvement this is a good indicator of industry improvement. Similarly, there were nearly twice as many Construction businesses reporting improved environmental benefits, 14 percent, compared to 8 percent for all businesses, which is probably reflecting industry efforts to reduce waste and energy consumption. 

 

Figure 5. Type of benefit from innovation

Source: ABS 8158

 

 

As Figure 6 shows, at 35 percent Construction has the second lowest proportion of innovation active businesses, Agriculture is lowest with 34 percent and Information media and telecommunications highest with 63 percent. The ABS found 37 percent of Construction businesses spent nothing on innovation, and for 50 percent of innovation active businesses expenditure on innovation was only up to $25,000. 

 

At the other extreme, 6 percent of businesses spent between $50,000 and $250,000, and 4 percent more than $250,00. Only 5 percent of Construction businesses got Government financial assistance, and most of them received it from state governments. For a quarter of businesses a shortage of funds was a barrier to innovation, and one third of Construction innovation was targeted at products or processes internal to the business [4].

 

Figure 6. Proportion of innovation active businesses

Source: ABS 8158

 

 

What Can Be Done to Increase Innovation?

 

The ABS survey highlights the many issues in Construction innovation. Only 12 percent of businesses reported having a digital culture, few innovations were new to the world, and expenditure on innovation was low. Innovations came from within the business or from clients, suppliers and competitors, not universities or research organisation. How could this performance be improved?

 

The survey did not ask specifically about R&D tax rebates, but it is unlikely these will have been claimed by many businesses because of their complexity, difficulty to substantiate, requirements for documentation, and the lack of familiarity with the rebate for accountants doing SME tax returns. This may be an area where industry associations might help by providing information, standardised forms and lists of qualified advisors and accountants. 

 

There are very many startups offering software solutions for construction, and a recent phenomenon has been the billions in venture capital going into construction technology. Setting up a demonstration and testing centre for contech is a possible area for collaboration between construction companies, with perhaps government. The centre would provide reports with evaluations of specific systems such as embodied carbon estimators, procurement platforms for materials and components, financial and timekeeping software, robotic and safety management systems. For construction firms, particularly SMEs, getting started on digitisation or choosing new software is challenging because there are so many offerings and no impartial reviews of their quality and suitability. 

 

Large firms such as tier one contractors and manufacturers could be the centre of an innovation consortium, where they coordinate the efforts of a number of smaller firms in developing and applying an innovation. This could be short-term partnership, probably one or two years, focused on a specific innovation and making it work. For example, a contractor with some subcontractors could work together on a new or improved process, or a manufacturer with some customers could work on a new or improved product. This would improve the industry’s innovation culture and increase participation in innovation activities, and might also get access to the tax rebate for SMEs.

 

A previous post argued for BIM mandates. That post concluded ‘BIM mandates are important because the use of BIM unlocks the potential of digital construction, and affects the organisation of suppliers of materials, products and services for construction of the built environment as well. The deeply embedded nature of the culture and processes of this production system, and the large number of small firms involved, slows technological diffusion and limits voluntary uptake of new technologies like BIM. Therefore, government mandates in particular and client’s mandating BIM in general are needed.’

 

BIM mandates are a blunt instrument and do not address the problems of cost, difficulty of use, and entrenching the few providers of the systems. However, large contractors doing major projects already have BIM capabilities, so making BIM a requirement on major projects is not problematic. It is an issue for SMEs and on smaller projects where the cost is not justified, although an interesting question is where the cutoff point is. Unfortunately, at present there is no alternative to BIM as the path to digitised construction. 

 

What else could government do, beside simplify the tax rebate and mandate BIM for major projects? Investment in digital capability through training and skills is needed. An example is the NSW Institute of Applied Technology that opened in 2023 as a collaboration of three universities, TAFE, Microsoft and CPB Contractors, with a microcredential stream in construction that has subjects in CAD, BIM, cloud computing, automation and robotics. 

 

More funding to develop new standards for prefabrication and modular building for the Australian Building Codes Board would be good, as this would speed up the process and help get the insurance and finance industry support needed for this part of the industry to grow and reach its potential. The June Building Ministers Meeting considered ‘a national scheme supporting the safety and reliability of building products’ and ‘noted the ongoing engagement .. with industry to support greater use of prefabricated and modular construction methods.’ Obviously still a long way to go there. 

 

Conclusion

 

The Business Characteristics Survey is a relatively new publication from the ABS, this is the second time it has run. The survey collects data on innovation and digital activities in alternate years, and the 2022-23 survey was on innovation. The results are presented as the percentage of businesses that undertook innovation related activities that resulted in new or improved goods or services or an improvement in processes.

 

Over the two years to 2023, 30 percent of construction businesses introduced a new or significantly improved innovation, 35 percent were innovation active and 50 percent of them spent up to $25,000 on innovation. Innovation active businesses increased their sales, profitability and productivity more than non-innovation active businesses. Innovation active Construction businesses were three times more likely to introduce a process innovation compared to a new good or service, with 39 percent introducing a new or improved process.

 

There are significant differences between large and small employers, with 31 percent of Construction businesses employing 0–4 persons and 43 percent of those employing 5–19 persons innovation active, compared to 79 percent of those employing 20–199 persons and 60 percent of those employing 200 or more persons innovation active. Micro and small firms also reported more difficulty in funding innovation activities and were less likely to have an innovation under development in 2023. The low level of innovation is an important factor in the lack of productivity growth in Construction, and the number of SMEs affects the industry’s level of innovation.  

 

Differences in investment in IT between innovation active and non-active businesses was marked. Innovation active businesses increased expenditure on cyber security, IT and training but only 8 percent of non-active businesses increased IT expenditure. Nearly 25 percent of innovation active businesses increased their use of digital technologies, but no non-active businesses did, highlighting the divide between firms that are digitising and those that are not. At 35 percent, the survey found Construction is the industry with the second lowest proportion of innovation active businesses.

 

 The ABS survey highlights the many issues in Construction innovation. How could this performance be improved? Access to R&D tax rebates may be an area where industry associations could provide information, standardised forms and lists of qualified advisors and accountants. A demonstration and testing centre for contech is an area for collaboration between construction companies, with perhaps government. Innovation consortiums could improve the industry’s innovation culture and increase participation in innovation activities. BIM mandates should be used on major projects. Government could increase investment in digital capability through training and skills, and funding to develop new standards. A goal of increasing innovation active construction businesses by 50 percent over a decade would take the industry from the bottom toward the top of Australian industries. 

 

[1] The ABS estimate for the total number of businesses was 1,016,252, so a survey of 7,000 is 0.7 percent. There were 193,844 construction businesses and if 0.7 percent were surveyed that would be around 1,350 in the survey sample. 

 

[2] The estimate of the number of construction businesses employing 0–4 persons was 142,242, for those employing 5–19 persons was 41,042, employing 20–199 was 8,494 persons, and employing 200 or more persons was 166. 

 

[3] A recent Reserve Bank Research Paper by Majeed, Hambur and Breunig on Monetary Policy and Innovation found ‘ monetary policy, both domestic and foreign, and economic conditions can have medium-run effects on productivity and output by influencing the amount of innovative activity that occurs.’ In the three years after an increase in interest rates innovation by SMEs was much more affected than innovation in large firms employing more than 200 people, and ‘contractionary monetary policy shocks lead to an increase in the likelihood that firms report that lack of funds is significantly hampering their ability to undertake innovation. This is almost entirely driven by SMEs, which is consistent with the evidence that SMEs have a larger decline in innovation following a monetary policy shock’. For Construction this confirms both that the low level of innovation is an important factor in the lack of productivity growth, and the number of SMEs affects the level of innovation.  

 

[4] The ABS notes that there is a high degree of uncertainty around many of the survey results, particularly for the employment size data, because of the sample size. 

Structural Aspects of Australian Construction

 Employment, income and value added

 

Australian construction has significant structural characteristics. Small and micro firms account for nearly two thirds of activity and employment compared to medium and large firms, and over three quarters of the industry is found in the three largest states. This post first looks at the differences between the states using data on industry employment and income. The second part looks at the employment and value added shares of the four different sizes of firms. 

 

State shares of employment and income 

 

The construction industry in Australia is highly concentrated in the three largest states of New South Wales (NSW), Victoria and Queensland, which account for 78 percent of construction employment, with a combined share of NSW and Victoria of 57 percent.

Including the Western Australia (WA) share of employment of 12 percent brings the total for the four states to 90 percent, so the share of the rest of Australia made up of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Northern Territory (NT), Tasmania and South Australia (SA) is only 10 percent of the Australian total.  As Figure 1 shows this is also the case for income, although NSW and Vic have slightly larger shares of income than employment.

 

Figure 1. State shares of employment and income

 

Source: ABS. RoA is Rest of Australia: Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory, Tasmania and South Australia.

 

There was not the same distribution of employment across the states in the past. In 2008 the number of people employed in NSW, Victoria and Queensland was almost the same, around 250,000 each (which then like now was 77 percent of the Australia total). Employment in WA increased during the mining boom 2011-14 but fell afterwards and is still below the level of 2014. Employment has been increasing since 2012 in NSW and in Victoria since 2016. In Queensland employment did not regain mining boom level until 2021, and has since increased significantly. As Figure 2 shows, compared to 2008 by 2023 there was a large difference in employment between NSW, Victoria and Queensland. 

 

Figure 2. Construction employment in major states

 

Source: ABS.

 

 

Figure 3 has the data for the rest of Australia, which shows how the relative size of construction in the ACT, NT and Tasmania is very small, with employment numbers around the 10,000 level. What is striking about those states is the lack of growth in construction employment since 2008, which reflects the low growth in their state economies. In SA there was a 40 percent increase in employment between 2016 and 2023. 

 

Figure 3. Construction employment in small states

 

Source: ABS.

 

This data is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual publication Australian Industry for employment in June and sales and service income in the financial year 2022-23. The state level data for construction sales and service income is unique to Australian Industry. For employment the usual source is Labour Force Australia, Detailed which gives full-time and part-time employment by industry for May and August [1].

 

As shown in Figure 1, the pattern across the states for income closely follows employment, with the four major states accounting for 91 percent of the total, and NSW and Victoria 60 percent of the total. However, there are noticeable differences between the states in income per employee. In 2023 the ACT had the highest income per employee by a considerable margin. Why that is the case is not obvious, but may be due to a higher proportion of institutional and commercial construction work compared to the other states. The major states have higher income per employee than the other smaller ones, with the exception of Queensland where income per employee is similar to SA and NT levels. 

 

Figure 4. Comparison of income per employee by state

 

Source: ABS.

 

 

Employment, Value Added and Firm Size

 

One of the other data sets in Australian Industry is on firm size. The ABS breaks industries into Micro firms with 0 – 5 employees, Small firms with 5 – 19 employees, Medium firms with 20 -199 employees, and Large firms with over 200 employees. In the construction industry Micro firms are the great majority, and had 44 percent of construction employees in 2023. However, that share has fallen over the last three years since 2021 when Micro firms were 47 percent of total employment. In 2023 the employment share of Small firms was 21 percent, of Medium firms 22 percent, and Large firms 14 percent. Each of those three categories of firms has increased their share of the total by one percent since 2021 as the share of Micro firms fell by 3 percent. 

 

Figure 5. Construction employment in June

 

Source: ABS.

 

 

Australian Industry also has Industry value added (IVA) by firm size, and this shows an important structural characteristic of Australian construction. There is a big difference in the 33 percent share of total construction IVA for the Micro firms is compared to their 47 percent share of total employment, and this much higher share of employment than IVA is indicative of a low level of productivity in Micro firms. 

 

As Figure 6 shows, for Small firms the shares are almost equal at 21 and 20 percent for employment and IVA respectively, and for Medium firms the shares are 22 and 26 percent. However, for Large firms there is a big difference, with a 14 percent share of employment compared to 21 percent of IVA, so there is a much higher level of productivity in the few Large firms than all other construction firms. Australian Industry does not give the number of firms in each category, but previous surveys have found less than 1 percent of construction firms are Large. 

 

The value of IVA per person employed can also be compared: for Micro firms it was $100,000 in 2023, for Small firms $124,000, for Medium firms $157,000, and for Large firms $195,000. Clearly, Medium and Large firms have higher levels of productivity measured as IVA per employee, with Large firms having nearly twice the IVA per employee as Micro firms.

 

 

 

Figure 6. Share of Industry by size of firm

 

Source: ABS.

 

This suggests reducing the number of micro firms would raise construction productivity, but it may not be so straightforward. Many of the micro firms will be doing repair and maintenance work, which is typically much more time and labour intensive than new builds. That is why knock down and replace is often preferred over major refurbishment. Amalgamating micro firms into small or medium ones that do the same work is unlikely to have much effect on overall industry productivity if the nature of the work is the primary cause of the low level of productivity, not the size of the firm. The issue here is the inclusion in Construction industry statistics of firms ranging from the micro local trades to large national contractors. 

 

This highlights the need for better data on construction work so repair and maintenance, alterations and additions, residential and non-residential building, and engineering construction are identified with the work done by contractors and the trades allocated to the main type of work. This would provide more relevant measures of productivity, allowing the labour input to each type of work to be estimated and matched to the value of work done. 

 

 

Conclusion

 

Australian construction has some striking structural characteristics. Activity and employment is highly concentrated, with the two states of NSW and Victoria accounting for half of the industry. Adding Queensland and WA brings that to 90 percent of industry employment and income. Because the other four states and territories account for only 10 percent of the industry’s employment and income, policies targeting the construction industry need to consider the major role the four big states, and particularly NSW and Victoria, will play in their success.

 

The structure of the industry is a pyramid made up of a wide base of many micro and small firms with a layer of medium sized firms in the middle, and a top containing a few large firms. Although those large firms are less than one percent of the number of firms, they employ 14 percent of the people and produce 21 percent of industry value added. Medium and large firms have much higher levels of productivity, measured as IVA per employee. For large firms this is $195,000, nearly twice the micro firm IVA per employee of $100,000.

 

The low level of productivity the micro and small firms that are the great majority of construction firms affects the industry level. Many of these firms are trades doing labour intensive work in residential repair and maintenance where there are few productivity gains available. Because industry statistics include this work with new work done in building and engineering construction the overall level of industry productivity is lowered, and productivity increases in new work from mechanisation and automation will tend to be cancelled out as growth in the size of the stock of buildings leads to an increase in the amount of repair and maintenance work required. 

 

 

[1] In Australian Industry the total number of people employed is not exactly the same as that found in the ABS Labour Force Australia, Detailed, the usual source of data that has full-time and part-time employment in May and August. For example, the Labour Force data for August 2023 had a total of 402,344 employed in NSW construction compared to the Australian Industry estimate for June of 390,300 people. For Australia the LabourForce had 1,295,076 as total employed in construction in August 2023, and Australian Industry had 1,250,100 employed in June. There is no breakdown of employment between full-time and part-time in Australian Industry. 

What is Construction Economics?

 Construction economics investigates issues and topics associated with the construction and maintenance of the built environment by firms, industries and projects, using economic theory, concepts and analytical tools.

 Construction economics is also concerned with the macroeconomic role of the construction industry and its relationship with associated manufacturing, professional services and materials industries. 

Construction economics applies a broad range of approaches to economic aspects of the construction firms, industry, and projects. These include industry economics, industrial organization and other management studies, financial and behavioural economics, econometric analysis and modelling, legal and institutional research, and transaction cost economics.

Topics of interest in construction economics include the roles of participants and processes, productivity and value for money, environmental performance and sustainability, the delivery process and procurement, the financing, viability and competitiveness of construction firms and projects, technological and institutional development, construction statistics and measurement, international construction, regulation, and government policies affecting the industry. 

Some of the earliest construction economics publications were on developing economies, bidding strategy, input-output data, building cycles, multinational firms, market structure, firm performance, size and scope, and the role of construction in long run economic growth. Over time organizational behaviour, transaction costs, decision making under risk and uncertainty, R&D and innovation were added. Recent work has been on issues around construction statistics and data and the measurement and performance of the construction industry and construction projects. 

Over the last five decades, contributions to construction economics have come from diverse viewpoints and places. There have been contributions from economists like Patricia Hillebrandt, Paul Strassman, Graham Ive, Stephen Gruneberg, Martin Skitmore and Goran Runeson, but also from architects, quantity surveyors, sociologists and engineers like Ducio Turin, Ranko Bon, George Ofori, Jim Meikle, Graham Winch, David Gann and Lauri Koskela. Construction economics is multi-disciplinary and uses multiple models to disentangle and analyse issues associated with the construction industry in particular and the construction of the built environment more broadly.

Comparing Large and Small Construction Firms

 Output and Income for Australian construction firms 

 

Australian industry data is provided in the Australian Bureau of Statistics annual publication Australian Industry (ABS 8155), produced using a combination of the annual Economic Activity Survey and Business Activity Statement data provided by businesses to the Australian Taxation Office. The data includes all operating business entities and government owned or controlled Public Non-Financial Corporations. Australian Industry excludes the finance industry and public sector, but includes non-profits in industries like health and education and government businesses providing water, sewerage and drainage services. The selected industries included account for around two-thirds of GDP. Excluded are ANZSIC Subdivisions 62 Finance, 63 Insurance and superannuation funds, 64 Auxiliary finance and insurance services, 75 Public administration, and 76 Defence. The most recent issue is for 2018-19.

 

The analysis is based on industry value added (IVA) and industry employment. IVA is the estimate of an industry’s output and its contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), and is broadly the difference between the industry’s total income and total expenses. IVA is given in current dollars in Australian Industry. The data is presented at varying levels for industry divisions, subdivisions and classes, but unfortunately does not include the number of firms. There is, however, some firm size data. Micro firms have less than 5 employees, small firms 3-19, medium firms 20-199 and large firms more than 200 employees. 

 

Figure 1 shows large construction firms have 15% of employment, 30% of wages and salaries and 23% of output. Medium firms have 18% of employment, 27% of wages and salaries and 21% of output, and micro and small firms account for approximately 65% of employment but only 55% of output. The labour-intensive work of small firms largely explains the lack of long-run growth of productivity in construction.

 

Figure 2 shows large firms have twice the level of output and income per employee compared to small and micro firms, and medium firms nearly 50% more. There is no significant difference between micro and small firms. IVA per employee is an imperfect but useful proxy for productivity, and this shows the gap between large and medium size firms is significant. 

The relationship between firm size and IVA per employee is not surprising, large firms are typically better managed than small firms. Management is the most important determinant of the capacity and capability of construction firms, because managerial skills give a contractor greater flexibility. How firms utilise their capabilities differentiates them within a diverse, location-based production system. It is widely recognised there are differences between industries in the way that production is organized and new technology adopted, adapted and applied, but differences within industries generally get less attention. Important differences are the individual characteristics of firms such as their size, the effects of competitive dynamics, and how the adoption of new technology by one company in an industry influences the adoption of technology by other companies in that industry. For building and construction this is significant, not only because of the number of small and medium size firms, but because of the size and reach of the major firms.

 

Figures 3 and 4 show IVA and income per employee for three years respectively. The most recent 2018-19 year is representative of the industry, based on this data. Construction firms convert around a third of their income per employee into IVA per employee, however large firms have twice the income per employee. These figures identify the balance sheet effect, as firms leverage the capital on their balance sheet to maximise revenue and profits. 

Construction has a large number of small firms bidding for work in local markets with little or no control over prices. There is a diminishing number of firms that can deliver large projects in a given region or have national operations, and there are a few dozen multinational corporations in construction. Construction economics has a wide range of views on the types of markets these firms operate in and their competitive behavour. There is, however, universal agreement that construction is an industry of projects, and firms operate in markets for projects of many different types. 

 

The relationship between firm size and contract value is therefore a fundamental reality in construction, and is also the foundation of the relationship between projects and firms. A firm is a legal entity and the typical reporting period is one year. A firm’s income is the cumulative cash flow of their portfolio of projects over a year. The focus on projects and construction management in construction research obscures the role of firms as the ongoing participants in the industry. 

 

For firms in construction markets annual revenue is the aggregated income from current work, or contracts won but not completed. Construction firms and contracts range widely in duration, size and value, but the amount of work a firm can take on must be related to the capital a firm has available. This relationship between firm size and the annual value of contracts or projects undertaken is based on the assumption that construction firms seek to maximize revenue but are constrained by their working capital. In construction the contract packages reflect the complexity of work, so there is a wide range of contract sizes. Construction contracts can, therefore, be arranged based on contract size and complexity. This is a well-known and widely agreed characteristic of the industry, with the relationship first researched in the 1980s. Competing contractors’ bids were affected by the type of project and by the value range, small firms considered both contract type and size, and large firms were more successful when bidding for large contracts. Contract size and complexity are also important because the wide range of contract sizes in the construction market is the major determinant of the number of firms. In a project-based market, defined by project size and complexity, there are many standardized projects but few companies able to undertake particularly difficult projects, those large construction firms deliver large projects and/or with a high degree of complexity.

Fewer Large Contractors in Australia

Long-run Changes in the Number and Size of Firms in the Australian Construction Industry 

There have been five Construction Industry Surveys (CIS) by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the most recent for 2011-12.  All five surveys found the construction industry is overwhelmingly made up of small firms which contribute most of the industry's output and account for almost all of the number of enterprises. Table 1 shows the breakup between contractors in Building and Engineering and the subcontractors in Construction services (which were called trades in the earlier surveys). The 2002-03 survey used different categories of businesses (not establishments) in residential, non-residential and non-building, and trade services and is not comparable with the other surveys. In 2002-03 there were 339,982 businesses of which 269,228 were trade services and 70,753 were residential, non-residential and non-building businesses.

How the size of firms is measured in the CIS has changed twice. The three surveys in 1996-97, 1988-89, and 1984-85 divided firms into three sizes: employ less than 5, employ 5-19, and employ 20 or more. The 2011-12 survey divided firms into small 0-19, medium 20-199 and large with over 200 employees. The 2002-03 survey divided firms by income and the data cannot be compared to the other surveys however, although income was used to classify firms, the 2002-03 survey produced a similar result, finding 90% of firms were small or very small. Here the 1996-97 survey and the 2011-12 survey data is presented. The breakup of firms by size is in Table 2.

In the 1996-97 survey businesses with less than five employees accounted for 94% of all businesses and over two-thirds of all employees. Less than 1% of businesses employed 20 or more. Businesses with less than five employees accounted for slightly less than half the total income and expenses, whereas businesses with employment of 20 or more accounted for almost one-third of these. The data in Table 3 is percentages, showing the importance of the 0.62% of large firms. Their 13.6% of employees earned 32.3% of salaries and wages, generated over 28% of income and nearly 25% of gross output.

The survey in 2011-12 classified firms by the number of employees into small 0-19, medium 20-199 and large with over 200. The same data for the 2011-12 survey is in Table 4. The changes between 1996 and 2012 are revealing. The total number of firms has increased marginally from 195,000 to 210,000, but the share of small firms has increased from 94% to 98% as the number of medium and large firms fell from 12,300 to less than 5,000. There was a trend with the number of medium sized firms decreasing to less than half, while slightly increasing their share of industry employment.

In 2011-12 less than 0.1% of firms were large, employing 18.6 % of the workforce, paying 32% of wages and salaries and generating 27% of industry income and 25% of output. 

 

These are remarkably similar to the 1996-97 CIS numbers, however, the 186 large firms in 2011-12 had almost the same share of employment, income and output that 1,200 firms had in 1996-97. This was a significant increase in industry concentration. In the 1996 survey the 1,200 firms employing 20 or more had a total of 66,000 employees and accounted for 13.6% of employment and 24.4% of industry output. 

 

In 2012 there were 186 firms employing 200 or more with 177,000 employees, accounting for 18.6% of employment and 25.5% of IVA. These long-run changes in industry structure can not only be the result of business failures, which are common with SMEs but less so for large firms. Instead, there has been a long wave of mergers and acquisitions reducing the number of large firms and increasing industry concentration. 

A stylized representation of construction industry firms by market type is in table 8, showing how concentrated markets can be the outcome of either firm size or specialization. Figure 5 relates market type to contract size. As a firm gets larger it takes on bigger projects and compete with fewer other firms. How construction economists sought to reconcile theoretical and conceptual models of construction firms with the messy reality of the construction industry is discussed in the next section.

Construction and Advanced Technologies

US Survey Data and the Construction Industry 

 

The previous post was on the United States Census Bureau Annual Business Survey (ABS). In 2018 the ABS included a technology module with three questions about the extent of technology use between 2015 and 2017: the availability of information in digital format (digitization), expenditure on cloud computing services, and use of a range of advanced business technologies. The first results were released in a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research in January. There were 583.000 responses to the survey, and two thirds of the firms employed under 10 people and were less than 20 years old.

 

The survey links technologies across firm size and age categories, as well as the co-presence patterns for the technologies at the firm level. It also identifies which technologies are in the early stages of diffusion as indicated by the rates of testing versus the rates of actual use of technologies by firms. The survey shows construction is not significantly lagging other industries in the US in digitization and use of cloud services, however it is doing less testing and development of advanced business technologies.

 

The main finding of the survey was “Despite increasingly widespread discussion in the press of machine learning, robotics, automated vehicles, natural language processing, machine vision, voice recognition and other advanced technologies, we find that their adoption rates are relatively low. Furthermore, adoption is quite skewed, with heaviest concentration among a small subset of older and larger firms. We also find that technology adoption exhibits a hierarchical pattern, with the most sophisticated technologies being present most often only when more-basic applications are as well.” 

 

 

Size and number of firms in US construction

 

The structure of an industry is the number of firms categorized by size, typically the number of employees. Firms are classified as small, medium or large, with the numbers used varying by country and industry, as the tables below show. Data on firms (often called enterprises in the statistics) is presented using the International Standard Industrial Classification. Section F in ISIC includes the complete construction of buildings (division 41), the complete construction of civil engineering works (division 42), and specialized construction activities or special trades, if carried out only as a part of the construction process (division 43). Also included is repair of buildings and engineering works. Although there are national variants on the Standard Industrial Classification format SIC codes therefore represent industries, and firms are classified (or often self-classify) to industries on the basis of common characteristics in products, services, production processes and logistics.

 

In the US the Census Bureau collects data on industries and enterprises, the latest data for 2012. The website has this notice: “Due to limited resources and competing priorities of critical programs within the Census Bureau, the Enterprise Statistics Program has been suspended.” Reflecting the scale of the American economy, the size range of firms is much greater than the EU and the largest firms much larger. Over 95 percent of US firms are small, in this case with less than 100 employees, and have on average five or six employees. However, there were 212 firms with 1,000 or more employees that had a total 630,000 employees, of which nearly 160,000 were employed by the nine largest firms. 

 

Table 1. US Construction 2012

Enterprise employment size	Number of enterprises	Sales or revenue $1,000,000	Annual payroll $1,000,000	Number of paid employees
All enterprises	581,601	1,349,346	260,606	5,006,131
Less than 100 employees	576,272	812,924	154,461	3,336,286
100 - 499 employees	4,788	226,818	46,899	817,823
500 - 999 employees	na	82,320	14,787	222,481
1,000 - 2,499 employees	141	79,475	14,968	211,141
2,500 - 4,999 employees	45	62,749	10,516	145,875
5,000 - 9,999 employees	17	38,072	7,497	113,133
10,000 employees or more	9	46,988	11,476	159,392

Source: US Census Bureau 2012, table 2; na is not available due to sampling issues. 

 

The data, which emphasises the number of firms, is deceptive because of the very large number of small firms the entire industry is often characterized as unconcentrated. Viewing the construction industry as predominantly made up of small firms supports the view of the industry as fragmented with the characteristics of perfect competition. That description is too broad, some segments are much less fragmented than others. Competition among large contractors and among specialty supplier firms is oligopolistic, while small contractors are closer to perfect competition. There are few significant barriers to entry to the construction industry for small firms, so labour-intensive subcontractors and small contractors can be assumed to operate under perfect competition. There are relatively few contractors capable of managing large projects, and the barriers to entry at this level in the form of prequalification are significant, based on track record, financial capacity and technical capability.

 

 

Technology testing and diffusion

 

The testing-versus-use rates across different technologies are used to assess which technologies are in earlier phase of diffusion, that is, where testing is high relative to use. From the survey data the Construction industry is neither a leader nor a laggard in the availability of information in digital format. Manufacturing, Information and Professional Services are the industries with the highest rate of adoption of digitization, with firm size the primary correlate of adoption. For expenditure on cloud computing services Construction is lagging, with use rates below the average and well behind Professional Services. Overall, cloud services purchases have much lower diffusion rates compared to those for digital information. On these two questions of digitization and cloud usage Construction is comparable to the Agriculture, Retail and Transport industries on the extent of adoption, which is significantly lower than the rate in Information, Professional Services and Health Care industries.

 

Where Construction is well behind is in the testing and use of a range of advanced business technologies. The butterfly chart below shows sectoral diffusion rates for all business technologies considered together. Manufacturing leads with about 15% of firms indicating use of at least one business technology, followed by Health Care (14%), Information (12%), Education (11%) and Professional Services (10%). The lowest diffusion rates for the technologies are in Construction, Agriculture, Mining and Utilities, Management and Administrative, and Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sectors. 

 

 

Figure 1: Extensive and Intensive Margin Measures of Use and Testing Rates for Business Technologies by Sector 

 

Across all AI-related technologies, the aggregate adoption rate for all firms in the economy was 6.6% meaning that approximately 1 in 16 firms in the US were utilizing some form of AI in the workplace. The AI adoption rate varies greatly by firm size. Adoption rates (defined as usage or testing) increase from 5.3% for the group of firms with the smallest number of employees to 62.5% for firms with 10,000+ employees. Scale appears to be a primary correlate of AI usage, and its use by large firms means the employment-weighted adoption rates (estimates of the fraction of workers employed by firms using the technologies for advanced business technologies) are five times higher than the firm rates (i.e. because large firms are using AI the number of employees working with AI is five time greater than the number of firms using AI). There is increasing concentration of both employment and advanced technology adoption in fewer, larger firms.

 

The analysis finds “In general, the business technologies explored in the module’s third question are more prevalent in larger and older firms. This skewness in technology prevalence suggests that these technologies may have a disproportionate economic impact despite their generally low adoption rates’ and “This may potentially have far-reaching implications on topics such as inequality, competition and the rise of “superstar” firms, especially if AI is shown to have widespread productivity benefits. If only a select group of firms are able to fully realize the benefits of AI, we can expect further divergence for the “frontier” and most productive set of firms.”

 

From table 1, in the US in 2012 there were 9 construction firms with 10,000 employees and 17 with 5-10,000 employees, employing nearly 280,000 people between them (out of 580,000 firms and 5 million employees). Although there will be small, young firms experimenting with AI and other technologies, the data suggests some of these large firms will be investing in advanced technologies like AI, robotics and augmented reality at a scale the rest of the industry cannot. This has already been seen with the use of BIM, which is spreading to smaller firms in the industry a decade after many larger firms began the process of implementation. Another example is the way some large contractors are already running their own platforms for procurement and project management, which their suppliers and subcontractors have to use. These are closed, internal platforms. However, there are also open platforms developed by digital systems integrators such as Project Frog. 

 

It seems clear that digital platforms providing building design, component and module specification, fabrication, logistics and delivery will become widely used. Platforms provide outsourced business processes, usually cheaply because they are standardized, and are available to large and small firms. Also, platforms use forms of AI to monitor and manage the data they produce, the function of intelligent machines. Examples are Linkedin (matching jobs and people), Skype (simultaneous translation of video calls), AWS and other cloud-computing providers, and marketing, legal and accounting software systems. Such cheap, outsourced, cloud-based business processes can lower fixed costs and thus firm size, because firms can focus on their core competency and purchases services as necessary as they scale, leading to more entry and more innovation. 

 

Table 2. Dimensions of Development

Dimensions	Construction and the fourth industrial revolution: Possible developments
Production of components and materials	Platforms integrate design and production with full visualisation of voice-controlled 3D models of buildings, components and location. Selection of components and modules from online design libraries, both open-source and private.  Developments in digital fabrication, design software and molecular engineering allow a range of new production technologies to spread through the industry. Economies of scale for on-site versus off-site production will determine where and what components are produced and how.
Mechanization and automation of tasks	Site workers have exoskeletons and smart helmets available.  Many on-site tasks can done by teams of robots and/or machinery and equipment, operated remotely with some autonomy. Assemblers can be designed and fabricated to install components and modules, which can be designed to be handled by assemblers.
Organization of projects	Cloud based platforms integrate delivery of the physical project with its digital model, with real-time data and monitoring of activities and tasks.  Standardized, outsourced cloud-based business processes are used, so contractors focus on integration of site work, site production and component assembly.

 

 

In the various forms that advanced technologies take on their way to the construction site, they will become central to many of the tasks and activities involved. In this, building and construction may no different from other industries and activities, however the development path in construction will be distinct and different from the path taken in other industries. This path dependence can vary not just from industry to industry, but from firm to firm as well. Because the construction industry’s technological system of production is so wide and deep this will affect a large number of firms and people, and through them the wider economy and society. Invention and innovation based around BIM, digital twins, cloud computing, digital fabrication and advanced manufacturing technology, will fundamentally affect the production system through economies of scale and scope. 

 

 

Advanced Technologies Adoption And Use By U.S. Firms: Evidence From The Annual Business Survey, by  Nikolas Zolas, Zachary Kroff, Erik Brynjolfsson, Kristina McElheran, David N. Beede, Cathy Buffington, Nathan Goldschlag, Lucia Foster and Emin Dinlersoz. 2020. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA Working Paper 28290 http://www.nber.org/papers/w28290