The weaknesses of China\'s contractors in overseas construction project management: 2 case studies

The practices of international construction contracting have been prevalent increasingly over the past half a century. Altough the contractors of highly developed world have dominated this field, there tends to be more players from newly emerging countries like China. The history of China's contractors performing in the overseas construction markets is divided into 3 major phases, namely the planning economy era, reform and openness perios and the latest new millennium. However, the know-how and techniques of modern project management have been widely deployed in China for merely 2 decades. While competing with those veterans in overseas markets, China's contractors still lack adequate advantages as well as experiences, leading to the underperformance or even failures. A 2-dimension framework of overseas project management, comprising the external risk and internal function aspects , is proposed. Based on the analysis of 2 recent cases in Saudi Arabia an Poland respectively, it's foung that the low cost strategy management in risk, commerce, cost, human resources, etc. are their fatal weaknesses.