A shortage of skilled laborers has constrained the new development path called Construction 4.0, which is proposed to improve construction industry with advanced technologies. It should be noted that mismatch between labor skills and technological progress will harm sustainable sector. In China, a three-tier management structure consisting contractors, subcontractors, widespread in market. Cons...

This paper addresses a single-stage scheduling problem with outsourcing allowed where each job can be either scheduled for in-house production or outsourced to one of the outside subcontractors available. The manufacturer has an unrelated parallel machine system, and each subcontractor has its own single machine. Subcontractors are capable to process all the jobs. Unlike most of past research, ...

Subcontracting has greatly increased in the construction industry. It helps shift risk from the main contractor to the subcontractor and promotes specialization. Inadequate subcontracting management, however, may result in an adversarial relationship between main contractors and their subcontractors, uncoordinated on-site execution, and disappointing quality and schedule fulfillment. New subcon...

We aim to understand how the customer relationship portfolio of a subcontractor changes as the subcontractor evolves its capabilities. While this line of research is under-investigated in the literature on business relationships, we believe that it is a crucial aspect to gaining new insights about how competitive advantages are developed in industrial markets. To address this research question ...

1 Japanese software industry The current circumstances surrounding the Japanese software industry are described brieey in this section. The Japanese economy is recovering slowly now, but many people are worried about weak competitive position of the software industry in the world market. 1.1 Recession Japanese industry has been struggling in a historically sever recession for many years. Number...