Ecosystem Visualization and Analysis of Chinese Prefabricated Housing Industry

Prefabricated housing has proven to achieve high quality, reduce costs and improve housing environmental performance. While prefabricated housing has been widely constructed in many jurisdictions, it is still in its infancy in China. However, the prefabrication sector in China is in transition as the macro environment is changing and new participants are expected to enter architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry who will have to work cooperatively as well as competitively with the existed companies. Such changes and strategic activities have impacts on every participant within the ecosystem. A better understanding of the whole industry as well as the participants’ strategic positioning will help companies develop their survival strategies. This paper aims to establish the prefabricated housing ecosystem in China based on the business ecosystem theory and to analyze the interrelationships among the major participants. A conceptual model of the ecosystem is established through literature review. Subsequently, the social network analysis (SNA) approach is employed to quantitatively analyze the strategic relationships between property developers and contractors who have adopted prefabrication in their residential projects. Finally, Node XL software is used for visualization and data analysis. Through the SNA measurements, the top 3 property developers and contractors are identified and several clusters are uncovered, which suggests a cooperation tendency among local actors.