Lauri Palojärvi

Managing International Growth Risks of Finnish Construction Industry: Business Cases of Finnish Construction Contractors and Building Product Suppliers Lauri Palojärvi

How can the internationalization risks of construction contractors and building product suppliers be managed? What are those main risks? The challenge for research is to replace "management by rear-window view" with an active look into future. Thus, this thesis derives from authentic documentation of construction projects, growth strategies, mergers, and acquisition and delivery projects in 1974-2006. In those, the early risk identification often led to proactive RM. It was beneficial to act proactively on business level, instead of waiting until commitments had been made, difficult to change at project level. Major risks occurred were inherent in managerial competencies. Competencies on cross-cultural issues were a more common major risk source than the contractual arrangements. The result, i.e. proven project RM methods could be applied at the business level, enables the major risks inherent in the competencies regarding cross-cultural and contractual issues to be managed early and proactively, is a novelty and applicable to any investment project businesses with cross- cultural, e.g. international contexts.