Abstract
In order to promote the process of building industrialization in China, prefabricated building has become an important means for the development of high quality building. However, many stakeholders in prefabricated building projects cannot visually obtain the value created by this model, which is the biggest obstacle to advance. Based on social exchange theory and stakeholder theory, this paper constructs a multilateral value network model with the owner as the central subject and core stakeholders such as the government, design units, construction units and prefab builders, and clarifies the content and direction of 30 value flows through literature research and expert interviews. Obtain data systematically quantitative theoretical model through a questionnaire a survey to clarify the value transmission of prefabricated buildings and search for the key path of value.
Introduction
In August 2020, nine departments including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the Ministry of Science and Technology jointly issued the “Several Opinions on Accelerating the Industrialization of New Buildings”, proposing to accelerate the industrialization of new buildings and vigorously promote prefabricated buildings. Prefabricated buildings are designed and manufactured in a prefabricated factory using standardized design and industrialized production methods, and then transported to the construction site for installation and composition [1, 2]. Prefabricated buildings have the advantages of high production efficiency, energy savings, and high comprehensive economic benefits, which are in line with the concept of green, circular and sustainable development [3]. However, there are many stakeholders in the entire industry chain of prefabricated building projects and meeting interest demands and obtaining value are the participation goals of each stakeholder. The construction mode has a long period of effectiveness and a large investment cost of prefabricated components. In the short term, each participant cannot benefit significantly. In addition, it has higher requirements for cooperation among participants than the traditional construction mode. The realization of multi-agent spontaneous collaborative work is the fundamental guarantee for the realization of the value of prefabricated building system.
Retrieving relevant literature from databases such as CNKI and web science using “industrialized building” and “prefabricated building” and “value delivery” and “stakeholder” as keywords, aiming at the coordinated management, collaboration mechanism and drive path of prefabricated building stakeholders, etc. Scholars at home and abroad have also done a lot of research. Wu et al. constructed a prefabricated building impact factor model from the perspective of stakeholders, and clarified the influencing factors of prefabricated building promotion. At the cluster level, the government played a leading role [4]. Teng et al. used the industrial symbiosis model to explore the symbiosis relationship and system stability of stakeholders in prefabricated buildings, and pointed out that the unbalanced development of designers, module suppliers and surveers and the lack of public recognition were the key factors affecting the symbiosis system stability of this model [5]. Li et al. constructed an evolutionary game model of developers, owners, and the government based on the perspective of dynamic revenue risk, and proposed that the key to promoting the development of prefabricated building projects was to increase the revenue of developers of prefabricated building projects [6]. Luo et al. used game analysis to reveal the best choice strategy for key stakeholders in prefabricated building projects to adopt the Internet of Things under different conditions, and proposed that the market penetration rate of Internet of Things platform in prefabricated building market is a key factor that seriously affects the decision of key stakeholders [7]. Xue et al. combined SEM and SNA to study the impact of various aspects of the collaborative relationship among stakeholders in industrial buildings on technological innovation [8]. Wang Wenjing et al. believed that the stability of the prefabricated construction industry chain was the prerequisite for development, and studied the benefit distribution of upstream and downstream stakeholders based on the modified Shapley value method [9]. Based on the existing research results of domestic and foreign scholars, it is found that most of the driving factors of prefabricated buildings and the collaboration mechanism of stakeholders are clarified from the perspective of stakeholders, which provides theoretical basis and practical value for the advancement of prefabricated buildings. However, the existing research has not fundamentally unearthed the value mechanism of stakeholders in the prefabricated building model and quantified and visualized it. Therefore, it is of great theoretical and practical value to clarify the value flow among stakeholders in prefabricated buildings from the perspective of stakeholders and conduct a visual study on the value mechanism of stakeholders for promoting the development of prefabricated buildings and realizing the coordinated development of building industrialization and intelligent construction in China.
Overview of stakeholder value network analysis method
The cooperative behavior among various stakeholders in the system is the prerequisite for the realization of system value. In order to quantify and visualize the economics of stakeholder value transmission, Cameron, a famous scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, first proposed Stakeholder Value Network, hereinafter referred to as the SVN model. Based on multi-disciplinary theoretical research such as stakeholder theory, value network theory, and social exchange theory, construct a multiple relationship network of value exchange between system-centric organizations and stakeholders, the concept of “utility” in microeconomics is used to quantitatively analyze the economy of social resource exchange among stakeholders [10, 11]. The specific steps for establishing the stakeholder value network model were shown in Fig. 1.
Steps of constructing stakeholder value network model.
Identification of stakeholders of prefabricated building
The stakeholders of prefabricated building projects refer to individuals or groups who have invested a certain amount of tangible or intangible value in the process of project construction and development and have undertaken certain construction and operation risks, and the main body’s decision-making, management and other activities will affect the realization of organizational goals, and organizational activities will also affect stakeholders. Based on the stakeholder theory, through studying the literature on prefabricated building stakeholders in the past 10 years at home and abroad. This paper summarized all stakeholders involved in the decision-making, preparation, design, production, transportation, construction, installation, operation, maintenance and demolition phase of prefabricated building projects from the perspective of the whole life cycle, as shown in Fig. 2.
Stakeholders throughout the life cycle of prefabricated buildings.
Through the analysis of the literature research method, it was concluded that there are many stakeholders involved in the whole life cycle of the prefabricated building project, the cooperation relationship was complex, and each enterprise contributed different degrees of value to the system in order to achieve their own benefit goals. In order to highlight and objectively obtain the key driving path of prefabricated buildings, the identified stakeholders need to be further screened and extracted. This paper invited 6 experts from local governments, construction units and prefabricated component suppliers to conduct structured interviews. Based on expert interviews and literature references, the core stakeholders of prefabricated buildings were identified, as shown in Table 1.
List of core stakeholder identification
The core stakeholders mainly include the Government (G), the Owner (O), the Design unit (D), the Construction unit (C), and the Prefabricated component supplier (P).
Value flow is the tangible and intangible value exchange between stakeholders in the process of achieving the overall value goal of the project. The intangible value is reflected in the formulation of regulations and suggestions, the support and opportunities provided, the knowledge and information provided, and tangible values include the provision of funds, services or products.
Based on systems engineering theory, the prefabricated building project is a complex system. In order to realize the resource sharing and value co-creation of the system, the value obtained and the impact generated in the project are different, clear the value contribution and interests of the stakeholders need to determine the value flow of prefabricated building-SVN theoretical analysis model. During face-to-face interviews with experts, we learned about the value contribution and interest demands of core stakeholders in prefabricated building projects, as shown in Table 2.
Value contributions and interest appeals of core stakeholders
Value contributions and interest appeals of core stakeholders
Clarify the value exchange between various stakeholders and construct a stakeholder value flow network model. According to the requirements in the stakeholder characteristic template SCT, analyzed the three elements of each stakeholder’s role, goals and specific needs, and determined the input and output value flow. In the value network, the value contribution of upstream stakeholders was the interests and needs of downstream stakeholders. Based on this logic, a multilateral value flow network model can be constructed. This paper used the expert interview method and analyzes the current development status of prefabricated building to identify and code the value flow. The value categories were distinguished by different lines. For example, when the owner was the main body, the first input value was the value output by the relevant government department. The relevant regulations and standards of prefabricated buildings obtained by the owner from the government belong to the regulations and suggestions of intangible value, which were represented by lines in the form of “short-dots” and the value flow code was O1.
The prefabricated building-SVN theoretical analysis model was composed of five core stakeholders: the government, the owner, the construction unit, the design unit, and the prefabricated component supplier, and 30 value flows, of which 12 were tangible value flows and 18 were intangible value flows. The number of value flows carrying knowledge and information was the largest, with 9 in total, accounting for 30% of the total value flows. Intangible value flow was more than tangible value flow, and knowledge and information value account for the largest proportion. This also fully illustrated the importance of knowledge sharing and information transmission among various stakeholders in prefabricated building projects, and to a large extent affected the realization of the comprehensive benefit goal of prefabricated building. There were a total of 20 value flows input and output by the owner, accounting for 67% of the total value flows. Therefore, the owner occupied a dominant position in the prefabricated building project and was the central organization of the value network. The prefabricated building-SVN model was shown in Fig. 3.
Prefabricated building-SVN model.
Quantitative analysis model establishment
The prefabricated building-SVN theoretical analysis model clarified the core stakeholders in the prefabricated building project and the value exchange between the stakeholders, but lacked the quantification of the relative importance of the value, so it was unable to focus on the driving strategy. Therefore, this loophole was considered in the stakeholder value network analysis method. Based on the SVN qualitative analysis model for further quantitative analysis, the questionnaire interview method was used to obtain the relative importance scores of each stakeholder for the value contribution and interest demands in the value network. The score was assigned based on the comprehensive perceived utility of the value carried by the input and output value flows of each stakeholder. Perceived utility score, that was, the score of value flow comprehensively indicated the level of satisfaction of the recipient of the value flow with the input value, and also reflected the willingness of the recipient of the value to be exchanged. Therefore, the questionnaire content of this paper was designed to display 30 questions, which were about the value resources carried by each value flow. Each value flow is based on two dimensions, respectively. “The importance of the source” and “The degree of need for resources”, and each dimension is evaluated with 5 scales. “The importance of the source” is scored from 0 to 4, which means that the source is not important to very important. “The degree of need for resources” is divided into 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 scores, representing that the needs of stakeholders for resources are never needed to very much needed.
According to Feng’s scoring calculation formula, in order to highlight the key resources in the value flow, the index calculation method for “The degree of need for resources” was shown in Eq. (1), and the importance of the source was linearly calculated in Eq. (2), and the comprehensive utility score of value flow was equal to the product of these two, as shown in Eq. (3), and the scale scores were within the range of (0.11, 0.98).
Through sampling surveys of typical prefabricated construction projects in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other provinces. A total of 120 questionnaires were collected through a combination of online and offline questionnaires with relevant personnel from the government, construction units, design units, construction units and prefabricated component suppliers as the survey subjects. To ensure the validity of the data, after screening some questionnaires with obvious logical problems, 102 valid questionnaires remain. The results of the questionnaire data were tested for reliability and validity using SPSS 23.0 software, and the KMO value was 0.822, and the Bartlett sphere test value was significant at
The value path is a simple and directed path connected by a group of stakeholders through the input and output of resources. On the value path, each stakeholder and value flow can only appear once, indicating the relationship between a group of stakeholders. When the starting point and the end point are the value path of the same stakeholder, the value path is called a value cycle. The value path score is calculated using the multiplication rule, and the path score is equal to the result of multiplying the scores of each value flow that constitutes the path. Because the value flow score is in the range of (0.11, 0.98), the product of multiple value flows in this range shows that the longer the path, the lower the path score. It also shows that the value path increases and the number of participants on the path increases. Coordination and communication between stakeholders become more difficult, so the value path score is lower. Based on the prefabricated building-SVN model, 5 stakeholders constitute a 5
Number matrix of value paths of stakeholders in prefabricated building
Number matrix of value paths of stakeholders in prefabricated building
Comprehensive score for all value flows.
The path with high value path score is shown in Fig. 5.
The key value paths.
The score of the value path was calculated by multiplying the individual utility values that constitute the value flow. Therefore, the shorter the length, the greater the comprehensive weight. The scores of all the searched value paths were sorted from high to low, and the high score paths with a path length of 2 or 3 values were the key value paths. This paper mainly analyzed six high-scoring value paths, which were defined as key value paths in the stakeholder value network model of prefabricated building projects. When the owner was the central organization of the project, the highest value path for the most critical resources input by each stakeholder and the general exchange among multiple stakeholders was determined. The critical path indicates the most important interest, demand, and resource contribution of each stakeholder.
In the key value path 1, the development of prefabricated building projects by the owners creates good social and economic benefits for the government, the relevant laws and regulations formulated and the improvement of the prefabricated building standard system by the government have pointed out the development direction for the owners to implement prefabricated building projects, and actively play the guiding role. In the key value path 2, the construction unit is the direct participant of the prefabricated building. As a stakeholder led by economic interests, the fundamental interest demand is to obtain high service fees. The owner pays high engineering costs, so that the construction unit guarantees the quality, duration and cost of the development building. To increase consumers’ purchasing intentions and promote the development of prefabricated buildings, construction units must ensure the quality and safety of buildings and prefabricated components while controlling costs, so as to reduce consumers’ purchasing concerns. In the key value path 4, the role positioning of the prefabricated component supplier in the prefabricated building industry chain and the comprehensive analysis of questionnaire data found that the biggest interest appeal to the owner is to provide specific requirements for prefabricated components and obtain accurate data and information. Avoid rework caused by components that fail to meet the requirements of the owner, and effectively reduce the cost of repetitive work, which also indirectly gains economic benefits. Prefabricated component supplier obtains accurate component information to better ensure the quality and progress of component production. In the key value path 3, the owner pays high service fees to the design unit. When prefabricated building project undergoes engineering changes, in order to ensure the project schedule and reduce the change cost, it is very important for the design unit to provide the owner with a good design solution for engineering change, which also reduces the unnecessary waste of resources in the project implementation. In the key value path 5, the owner’s investment in the development of prefabricated buildings has brought significant social and economic benefits to the government. The construction unit most hopes to obtain the construction quality and safety specifications from the relevant government departments, so as to achieve the owner’s project objectives of high quality, high efficiency and low cost. The owner increased the willingness to develop after obtaining the high profit of the construction of prefabricated buildings, which will form a value cycle, promote the spontaneous collaboration of multi-stakeholders, and realize the co-creation of system value. In the key value path 6, the design unit, as the practitioner and promoter of the prefabricated building concept, is the fundamental requirement to obtain economic benefits from the owner. It provides the prefabricated component supplier with accurate component standards, and the prefabricated component supplier is acquiring accurate component standards can ensure the progress and quality of production components, and better achieve project goals for the owner. As an important “feature” of prefabricated buildings, prefabricated components ensure the high quality of components to give full play to the advantages of prefabricated buildings compared to traditional buildings.
Key value paths 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 analyzed the important supply-demand resource relationship among stakeholders when the owner was the central organization, and key value paths 5 and 6 indicated the general exchange among core stakeholders in prefabricated buildings, and were also the key driving paths for the promotion of prefabricated buildings.
Main research conclusions
Prefabricated building project is a complex system in which multiple stakeholders participate in coordination, communication, and cooperation. At present, China is still in the initial stage of development, and the lack of perfect resource sharing platform and information communication channel directly leads to the obstruction of the value creation of the prefabricated construction industry chain. The fundamental reason for the promotion of prefabricated building is that the participants cannot visualize the value created by this construction mode. The prefabricated building-SVN model is composed of five core stakeholders: the government, the owner, the construction unit, the design unit and the prefabricated component supplier, and 30 value flows, of which 12 are tangible value streams and 18 are intangible value flows. The number of value flows that carry knowledge and information is the largest. Intangible value flows are more than tangible value flows, and knowledge and information value account for the largest proportion. The importance of knowledge sharing and information transmission among various stakeholders in prefabricated building projects greatly affects the realization of the comprehensive benefit goal of prefabricated buildings. With the help of questionnaire survey methods, the relative importance of each stakeholder’s value contribution and interest demands in the value network can be obtained, thereby clarifying the value transmission mechanism of each stakeholder and the key value path of project decision-making. The key value path indicates the general exchange among core stakeholders in prefabricated buildings, and it is also the key driving path for the promotion of prefabricated buildings. The government needs to actively play a guiding role and improve the prefabricated building standard system. The owner needs to formulate a financial incentive mechanism for the design unit and construction unit accordingly, and provide the prefabricated component supplier with accurate component information, so as to encourage the design unit, construction unit and prefabricated component suppliers can better guarantee the quality, construction period and cost of prefabricated buildings, and further promote the development of prefabricated building models in China.
Relevant government departments need to establish a complete prefabricated building standard system, formulate relevant laws and regulations for prefabricated buildings, so that the participating units have building standards to follow and norms to follow, actively play the guiding role of the government, and specify the construction unit’s development direction, and provide certain policy subsidies to encourage construction units to promote the large-scale application of prefabricated buildings. In leading countries in the prefabricated construction industry such as Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany, the government has formulated a series of prefabricated building incentive policies and measures, established a complete standard system, realized the standardization and industrialization of buildings, and vigorously promoted the development of the prefabricated building intelligent industry. Prefabricated buildings are still in the preliminary stage of development in China. Foreign policies and standard frameworks have an important reference role for our country. Construction units and design units, as participants with economic interests as the leading, participate in the construction of prefabricated buildings and their fundamental interest appeal is to obtain financial returns. In order to encourage the construction unit and design unit to complete the project better, the owner should formulate a financial reward mechanism in the contract. For example, under the premise of ensuring the quality of the construction, the construction unit can efficiently complete and accept the project in advance, so that the building can enter operation earlier. At this stage, the owner should give certain financial rewards to stimulate the enthusiasm and efficiency of employees. Prefabricated component suppliers obtain sufficiently accurate component information and standards to ensure the parameterization and integration of the production and manufacturing processes of prefabricated components. Therefore, the application of BIM technology should be increased in prefabricated building projects. BIM technology has the characteristics of coordination, visualization and informationization, and provides a good information sharing platform for the development of prefabricated buildings. The BIM model information sharing platform strengthens the transmission and synchronization of component parameters and other information among stakeholders, reduces the rework rate of prefabricated components, reduces the cost caused by repetitive work, and improves the production efficiency of prefabricated components.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Jiangxi University Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project: “Research on digital transformation path and development strategy of construction industry in Jiangxi Province under the background of digital economy” (GL21121).