Making and implementing industrial building investment decisions

This thesis aims to increase current understanding of the ways in which large firms make and implement industrial building investment decisions. The study reported involved an investigation, from the corporate perspective, of the decision and implementation stages of capital investment projects in two large UK firms. The orientation of the study is towards a consideration of investment decision making and implementation as a problem for management involving a process of resource allocation occurring over time and throughout the corporate organisation. Drawing on research in the business administration area of social science, the process model of resource allocation by Bower (1970) is used as a conceptual framework and to suggest propositions for study which direct attention at key features of the process. By viewing corporate capital investment decision making and implementation within this framework - and as part of an in-depth, case-based, exploratory research strategy - rather than in terms of its financial or economic consequences, the study reaches an understanding of the ways in which both firms studied actually made and implemented their capital investment decisions. The analysis utilised the study propositions to explore the resource allocation process and yields important observations on the role of the construction industry in the investment decision process and of the role of the corporate client in the construction process. The central finding is that the implementation of corporate capital investment, seen from the firm's perspective, is more a continuation of the process of capital investment than an end result of it. The study suggests that the construction industry participates rather more in the investment decision process, and the corporate client participates rather more in the construction process, than is generally recognised in the literatures on corporate capital investment and construction management.