Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction

Purpose – The paper aims to identify firm-related competitive assets (FRCA) and home country-related competitive assets of Malaysian international contractors.

Design/methodology/approach – Rather than applying any one of the extant models on the internationalisation of businesses singly, the study combined several relevant models, thereby providing a rich theoretical basis. Data were collected using a postal questionnaire survey and follow-up face-to-face interviews. Past empirical observations of international construction companies were referred to when designing the questionnaire. All of the known Malaysian contractors with international operations were approached.

Findings – While there was broad concurrence between the sampled Malaysian contractors' FRCA with past studies, the participating firms attributed low competitive value to country-related competitive assets. Even so, they were not keen to establish their export bases in more supportive countries because of top management's personal affinity to Malaysia as a home country.

Research limitations/implications – The surveyed population is relatively small with low response rate.

Originality/value – The findings do not support the eclectic paradigm and diamond model on the aspect of home country features as providing competitiveness to international construction firms.