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Introduction
There has been a vast amount of research into construction productivity stretching back over 50 years. Papers published in 18 leading internationally peer reviewed journals and conferences and Phd theses over the last thirty years produced four hundred and eight references to productivity looking at a wide variety of issues ([7] ARCOM, 2013). Some papers focus on the measurement of productivity, some focus on particular trades, others focus on specific industry sub-sectors while many seek to identify generic factors that appear to affect productivity. Although this research has undoubtedly advanced our understanding of the subject, the literature almost entirely presents a principal contractor's perspective. Only one paper in this extensive database makes reference to subcontractors and even this paper does not have productivity at its core. Yet subcontractors are absolutely central to the construction industry's productivity. They employ the vast majority of people in the industry and represent the front line where the physical task of construction in undertaken on site. For example, [16] CFMEU (2011) points out that the construction industry employs five times as many independent contractors as any other industry in Australia and accounts for 33 per cent of all independent contractors in Australia. The situation is the same in many other countries where subcontracting is the dominant form of employment in the construction sector.
Given the importance of subcontractors in the construction industry and the economy as a whole, there is clearly a need for a more balanced perspective in the construction productivity literature. Within this context, the aim of this paper is to explore construction productivity from the subcontractor's perspective. More specifically, it is to explore what needs to be done to improve productivity from a subcontractor's perspective and to identify priority areas that should be focused on by the principal contractors that employ and manage them.
Defining productivity
In its simplest terms productivity is the output produced by a unit of study as a proportion of the inputs required to produce it ([42] OECD, 2001). Outputs are measured by the value or quantity of goods or services produced to a certain defined quality and standard. Inputs on the other hand, include resources such as time, labour (manual and managerial), plant/equipment/technologies, materials, energy, fuel, etc. As [27] Horner and...