The construction industry’s traditional resistance to incorporate change has prevented benefits from technological advancements to accrue. One area in which technology shows potential to benefit the industry is in addressing the existing communication gaps between the designer, builder, and owner. This gap is more evident in the operation and maintenance of a building. At project completion, an owner also receives information of the building. This information is comprised of as-built drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, warranties, and other documents.
A series of important recent experiments suggest that alterations in the strategic relationship of actions in a game can importantly affect behavioral outcomes. At issue is whether actions are strategic complements or strategic substitutes. Given an ordering of actions, actions are strategic complements when higher action choices by one player provide an incentive for others to make higher action choices as well. Actions are strategic substitutes when the reverse is true, that is, when higher action choices by one player provides an incentive for others to reduce their action choices.
Bank consolidation is a global phenomenon. In the U.S. alone, over 8,000 bank mergers occurred from 1980 through 1998, while the largest acquisitions, accounting for one-half of the total consolidated assets for the 19-year period, occurred from 1995 through 1998 (Rhoades, 2000). Countries in Europe and elsewhere have experienced consolidation as well.
A recent study by the Group of Ten found a high level of merger and acquisition activity in the 1990s among financial firms in 13 countries studied (Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K., and the U.S.), with a noticeable acceleration in consolidation activity from 1997 through 1999. Of the 7,304 financial mergers documented in the study, nearly 61 percent involved banks. This consolidation activity created a number of large, complex financial institutions, and the number of banking firms declined in almost every country during the decade (Group of Ten Report, 2001).
