Research On Partnering-based Core Competence Of International Contractors

Currently, Chinese international contractors only have relatively small market share with low profit, demonstrating their poor core competitiveness in the international competition. To meet the need of"going-out"strategy ofChinese international contractors, there is a need to study the core competences of international contractors based on partnering approach to integrate the resources of business chain in international markets. On the perspectives of partnering capabilities of acquiring resources, transforming resources, learning and innovation, eight critical successful factors(CSFs) of core competence have been identified, including strategy, organization system, human resources, information management, technology and learning & innovation, marketing, culture, and environment adaptation. According to these factors, this study has established a partnering-based core competence model to demonstrate the theory on the evolvement of international contractors'core competence. Then, a measurement system has been developed to evaluate the eight CSFs of core competences.To test the model, data have been collected by interview, questionnaire and case study from international contractors. The collected data have been analyzed by using hierarchy analysis, ranking analysis, correlation analysis, hierarchy cluster analysis and typical analysis. The results demonstrate the importance of the CSFs and the relationships among the CSFs, revealing core competences are the outcomes of the interactions among the CSFs. For example, the factor of marketing can be a typical index, which could reflect the performance of other seven CSFs. The partnering-based core competence model has been confirmed by the empirical study.According to the mechanism on core competences revealed above, this study has further established benchmarks of core competences for international contractors, based on the performance of three international contractors ranked in top 10 in the global market. Then, this study has analysed the core competence gaps between Chinese contractors and the foreign contractors using the benchmarks, which implies the ways of how the Chinese international contractors could improve their core competences on the ability perspectives of acquiring resources, transforming resources, learning and innovation based on the partnering approach.