IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/conmgt/v20y2002i5p437-448.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate growth of engineering consulting firms: a European review

Author

Listed:
  • Gerhard Kreitl
  • Gerhard Urschitz
  • Wolfgang Oberndorfer

Abstract

Corporate growth is understandably one of the hottest topics among researchers in management and managers themselves. Nonetheless, research in the sector of professional service firms, especially engineering consulting firms, has not yet led to a deeper understanding of how growth in this particular sector is achieved. This descriptive empirical study tries to provide some answers by reviewing the endeavours of the largest engineering consulting firms in Europe (top 100) within the timeframe 1990-1998. The findings suggest that the firms surveyed grew on average about 120% in terms of staff increase and about 170% in terms of revenue increase. This growth was largely achieved organically: growth through mergers and acquisitions (M&A) also contributed quite strongly whereas engaging in joint ventures played only a minor role. The same pattern emerged when analyzing the success of the different modes of growth, with organic growth being the most successful, followed by growth through M&As and joint ventures. Further, it could be shown that the firms' growth was strongly influenced by a focus on firm size, followed by a focus on market share and on profit, while focus on the firm's value was less significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerhard Kreitl & Gerhard Urschitz & Wolfgang Oberndorfer, 2002. "Corporate growth of engineering consulting firms: a European review," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 437-448.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:20:y:2002:i:5:p:437-448
    DOI: 10.1080/01446190210139487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190210139487
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/01446190210139487?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kai Pflanz, 2013. "Seeking Opportunities: International Market Selection by European Engineering Consultancies," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 104(5), pages 556-570, December.
    2. Gabriel Sorin STROE, 2014. "On The Threat Of Suppliers For The Engineering Consulting And Design Services Firms," Risk in Contemporary Economy, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, pages 140-149.
    3. Gabriel Sorin STROE, 2014. "Are The Professional Engineering Services Threatened By Substitutes?," Risk in Contemporary Economy, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, pages 160-169.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:20:y:2002:i:5:p:437-448. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RCME20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.