The Influence Mechanism Of Customer Relational Capability On Construction Enterprise Performance

Relation resources have always been considered to be important for performance improvement, and the relationship under construction project background has been subject to a considerable amount of research and attention. Both of Partnering in the international construction and harmony engineering project management in China emphasize good relationships between project participants. However, more important thing is the ability to manage and make use of these relationships. With the continued update of the construction techniques and the increasingly fierce market competition, customer resources have become the determinants of survival and development of construction enterprises. How to enhance customer relational capability to foster good customer relationships and improve enterprise performance has become an important issue for construction enterprises.Overall, some construction enterprises in China still misunderstand customer relationship management or lack systematic implementation, leading to undesired results. It can be attributed to weak customer relational capability. Existing research has already discussed customer relational capability and its influence on performance. However, research about customer relational capability of construction enterprises is insufficient, especially lacking for the quantitative research, and the influence mechanism of customer relational capability on construction enterprise performance is not clear.Based on some theories such as resource and competence theory and customer relationship management theory, this study aims to answer the question of "how customer relational capability influences construction enterprise performance". Firstly the background and meanings are introduced, and the current research about customer relational capability, construction enterprise performance evaluation and their relationship is reviewed. Then, customer relational capability factor system is established, and the influential factors are analyzed. After construction enterprise performance evaluation system is established, the influence mechanism of customer relational capability on construction enterprise performance is analyzed, and relevant theory hypotheses are put forward. According to the empirical data from construction enterprises in China, the hypotheses are demonstrated with the structural equation modeling method, and some suggestions are put forward for construction enterprises to improve customer relational capability. Finally the whole research is concluded, innovation points and suggestions for the future research are pointed out.Through theoretical and empirical analysis, three main conclusions and contributions are found:①On the basis of literature research and interviews, the concept of customer relational capability of construction enterprises is analyzed, customer relational capability factor system is established, and its scale are developed, which includes two aspects:customer relational supporting capability and customer relational behavior capability, with18indicators. In the empirical study, the reliability, validity and fit indices of the scale show well. Different from existing research, customer relational capability of construction enterprises is analyzed not only from a behavior view, but also combining resource base, which can help construction enterprises to recognize the importance of resource accumulation and capability improvement.②Considering the short-term and long-term interests, construction enterprise performance evaluation system is established, comprising of two levels:project level and enterprise level. Then the scale of construction enterprise performance is developed, including three dimensions:construction project performance, construction enterprise financial performance and non-financial performance, with14indicators. It is clearly pointed out that construction enterprise performance consists of both enterprise level performance and project level performance. Furthermore, the latter reflects not only the results of construction project itself, but also the relationship between the construction enterprise and the owner. Through the empirical study, the scale of construction enterprise performance is proved to be effective, which can provide reference for construction enterprises to evaluate performance.③The influence mechanism of customer relational capability on construction enterprise performance is deeply analyzed, then some theoretical hypotheses are proposed and tested with the structural equation modeling method. The results show that customer relational supporting capability is beneficial for project performance, customer relational behavior capability fully mediates the relationship between customer relational supporting capability and project performance, and project performance is positively correlated to financial and non-financial performance of enterprise level. Among them, project performance has greater impact on non-financial performance. It is helpful for construction enterprises to pay more attention on long-term interests and the importance of "behavior" based on resource accumulation, in order to improve project performance and promote continuous development.The application of customer relational capability is extended to construction enterprise management. The concept, dimensions and influential factors of customer relational capability are analyzed, which can promote the development of resource and competence theory and Customer Relationship Management theory. Meanwhile, the effect of customer relational capability on construction enterprise performance is tested in China, and the local research outcomes are gained. It can compensate the shortage of large-scale empirical research in existing literature about customer relational capability, help construction enterprises to recognize that relational capability is much more important than relationship, and guide them to invest resources in key dimensions of customer relational capability to improve the efficiency of resource allocation and construction enterprise performance.