Innovation, Best Practices and the Structural Change in the Japanese Construction Industry after the Age of High Economic Growth

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The concept of "risks" and "relational rents" have been introduced to make explicit the difference in the settings I.e. boom and recession periods, wherein employers and contractors behave, clarifying that (a) though, during a continuous boom period, more transactional risks are placed on the side of employers, they are cancelled by contractor's endeavour to maximise relational rents through long-term relationship; and that (b) under recession, most of the transactional risks are transferred to the side of the contractors, but employers themselves become threatened in turn by huge "structural risks". In order to cope with the change in the setting employers whose transactional risks are minimised should take the responsible action to help improve the situation, and the third-party professional consulting practices need to be established to avoid structural risks.As to the third-party consultants, the functions of such new practices as Construction Managers and Facade Engineers were investigated to find out that they play the prerequisite role to make versatile procurement methods possible and the best practices through supply chain managementContractors, on the other hand, who are losing the basis for the Japanese management system that has brought about such reputed traditions as partnering and concurrent engineering, should try to acquire alternative means to retain competence in technological innovation. To do so, their corporate strategy should be focused on the real needs of employers/consumers and the core competence that gives them market competitiveness.