• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.3-14
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• 2015

Since the global financial crisis, the Korean domestic construction market has continuously experienced downturns, and the Korean domain construction firms'profitability has been persistently deteriorated. Domestic construction firms have rapidly advanced to overseas markets exclusively for the construction contract packages. However, the profitability for the construction contracts has been lower compared to engineering or project management contracts. One of the critical issues the Korean firms have faced was project management capability across all phases in project execution. Even though several project management capability assessment tools were introduced, most tools were applicable to a wide variety of industry sectors rather than construction industry. Project management capability assessment tool specifically applicable to domestic CM firms was developed through this research, in order to assess project and program management capabilities and improve the competitiveness in overseas market Also, the correlation between project, programs, and the CM infrastructure were identified. The CM firms were divided into two groups according to the size of the business, and both were evaluated at the project and the program level based for the 9 different criteria. The project management capability assessment tool developed for the CM firms can be used for self-assessment to distinguish the strengths and weaknesses of each company at the project and program level. In addition, the current status of each group can be identified by spotting improvement areas for the management capabilities.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.31 no.2D
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• pp.247-253
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• 2011

In 2009, the Korean international construction industry showed a great performance, totaling 49.1 billion of contract and then this achievement has been considered a key milestone presenting that the international construction industry is one of the primary export industries of Korea. However, because of the construction firms' equalized levels of technology and price competitiveness, the competition among bidders is becoming more intensive. Moreover, this changing market circumstance leads construction firms to apply for bidding with the lowest price that could not meet the expected profitability of a project. Therefore, to develop various strategies based on project characteristics becomes one of the critical capabilities that construction firms should possess. Based on these motives, this study is aimed to investigate associations among number of bidders, contract award rate, profitability on international projects. For the correlation analysis, a set of data is structured by collecting all projects ranging from 1993 to 2009, excluding projects funded by official development and domestic funds. The number of bidders were grouped depending on project characteristics such as market regions, project types, bidding types, and order organization types. As the result of correlation analysis, contract award rate increases as the number of bidders increase, but the relationship between the number of bidders and profitability is negative. Understanding the correlations among variables can be employed in developing strategies to improve construction firms' competitiveness in the international construction market.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• autumn
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• pp.299-302
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• 2003

Recently the timely delivery and the appropriate management for construction materials are of great significance in that the buildings are getting complicated and more various materials need to be handled. However, these systems have some problems, and do not seem to work effectively yet. The reason is that the lack of operation scheme for systematic management in project. In this study the efficient scheme for the .material procurement system in construction firms to manage the construction materials efficiently was discussed.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.17-26
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• 2017

The sustainable growth of Construction Management(CM) market depends on clients'acceptance from positive project outcomes of CM services. Achieving the positive outcomes requires CM firms'competency and efforts. Equally, it is critical to understand and overcome barriers of CM performance, which cause inefficiencies and under-performance of CM services. The objective of the study is to identify and discuss the barriers of CM performance during pre-construction stages in private CM projects based on the FMEA technique. Major findings basically suggest that clients and CM firms have roles to play, individually and collaboratively, in order to improve CM performance by eliminating performance barriers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.225-229
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• 2009

International construction market has been open to other countries, and it derives the development of our overseas construction industry quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Until now, the major companies have an absolute majority in the overseas construction market, and the small and medium enterprises have had difficulty to get a leadership in the international construction market because of the lack of the technical expertise and the capital strength. Especially in the Middle East Asia, our construction companies has touched off a boom, so our market share also has grown, which derived from the up toward ratchet oil prices and a worldwide boom in real estate development. The small and medium enterprise minority have recognition that the overseas construction market is the major company's native territory. But Data from the existing researches and many statistics indicate the most companies tend to underestimate the capacity and international competitiveness of the small and medium enterprises. As a matter of fact, hundreds of small and medium enterprise cut a conspicuous figure in overseas market. Consequently, it is indispensable to overcome the international financial crisis by revitalizing our overseas construction industry which obtains excellent results in international market. this study suggested the ways to expand overseas bonding capacity of Korean financial institution. This study proposed the Korean government to allow Construction Guarantee (former Korea Construction Financial Cooperative) to deal with foreign exchange so that Construction Guarantee will underwrite the overseas construction bond.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.140-151
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• 2013

In 2011 and 2012, Korean construction firms awarded around $ 64.5. Billion each year from the overseas market in 2011. This contract value accounted for overwhelming portion of total overseas construction contract values, and this growth is expected to continue for the next decade. However, contract scopes awarded to the Korean construction firms mainly involve detailed design and construction phases due to their competitiveness for the construction techniques. In other words, front-end-engineering-design and construction project management are not considered part of core business due to the lack of project management skills and experience. The researchers focused on development of construction sequence model required to improve construction planning and scheduling skills for the Korean construction firms. The model identifies critical work items and the sequence throughout project execution process. In addition, the researchers developed a risk evaluation method by applying fuzzy theory to the critical construction activities for the industrial plant construction projects. Developed methodology will help project practitioners to develop project schedule in a timely and effe ctive manner and evaluate project risks associated with scheduling process for the industrial plant construction projects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.619-623
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• 2008

Recently, the restriction of contracting business between general and specialty contractors are deregulated, which means the elimination of the traditional market entry block in the Korean construction industry. It could be a threat and/or an opportunity to construction firms, and requires establishing new business strategies in order to obtain relative competitiveness between the general and the specialty. Under this change in the industry, this research performed to provide some suggestions for specialty firms in setting up their new business strategies by analyzing various changes of their competitiveness elements. This study extracted 20 core competitiveness elements from major 6 competitive categories required in doing specialty contracting business, and their relative importance between the 20 elements were measured. It was found that the specialty's relative competitiveness has been greatly changed and affected by the deregulation of the protective business restriction.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.113-121
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• 2013

An expansion into the global market increasingly becomes a buzz world among Construction Management(CM) firms in Korea. The objective of this study is to identify potential obstacles and investigate their nature and implications to CM firms in Korea. The study identified 25 obstacles under 5 categories. Base on a questionnaire survey and interviews with CM experts who have global CM projects experience, the study discusses that while there exist various types of obstacles, a more attention needs to be paid for a small number of major obstacles to minimine risks in overseas CM projects. It also suggests that improving pre-construction management competency through securing CM experts should be listed as a top agenda for Korean CM firms.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.92-100
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• 2015

This paper examines the extent of China's market liberalization in the construction market seen through the point of view of WTO agreements and Korea-China FTA. Since the environment set by these agreements form the institutional background that Korean firms must work with to successfully access the market, the Korean government must work to reduce Chinese barriers as much as possible through international negotiations on these agreements. The paper sets out three goals for negotiations and the appropriate agreements and fora the government can use to advance these goals.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.79-89
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• 2015

The firms with OHSAS (Occupational Health and Safety Management System) registration should be audited every six months and they have to be reregistered every three years by a third party. In our article audit data were collected from the audit processes of fifty four firms that OHSAS 18001:2007 was implemented and audited by LRQA (Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance). Fifty four firms are largely classified as four categories: civil engineering and construction industry, metal and heavy industry, chemical industry, and other industries including electric, electronic, food, and services. Especially the minor conformity data are analyzed by statistical methods to find out the relationship between four categories of 54 firms and the average number of minor nonconformities. The most frequently appeared minor nonconformities among sub-requirements of OHSAS 18001:2007 are investigated and the reasons for minor nonconformities are specifically explained. The average number of minor nonconformities of firms before and after OHSAS 18001:2007 registration are compared to understand the maturity of OHSAS implementation. Some comments and suggestions are provided for OHSAS to be effectively implemented to the firms if revision is necessary.