Korean Engineering Firms' Competitiveness Change for the Last Decade

Recently, there has been a steady decrease in the proportion of the construction sector among Korean engineering firms. Thus it is essential for Korean engineering firms in the construction sector, which lack experience in overseas ventures, to identify and improve their competitiveness for successful overseas expansion. Therefore, in this study, changes in Korean engineering firms' capabilities for the last decade were analyzed to promote entry into overseas road and water resource engineering markets. Competency factors that require urgent improvement were derived based on Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) as a tool for quantitative measurement. As a result, the factor that shows low performance compared to the importance is an overall understanding of the target country in the road and water resource areas. Knowledge of regulatory issues on design, the ability of time management software, and knowledge of the regulatory problems on construction safety are also insufficient. This study can be used as a research methodology to identify competitiveness that Korean engineering firms have to strengthen when they advance into overseas markets in roads, water resources, and other areas.