ABSTRACT
The construction services industry is highly fragmented. Most firms are small or medium sized and provide technical services to small residential projects and simple infrastructural facilities. In Japan there are more than 5,000,000 construction firms and in Western Europe thousands of companies operate in this sector and their individual market share in any one country does not exceed 4 per cent (Swiss Bank Corporation 1990: 4). In the USA there are over 1 million firms doing business in this sector and only a few thousand of them are engaged in international activities (Office of Technology Assessment 1987: 124-7).
