Abstract

Over the years, the focus on value creation has shifted from hard, tangible economic benefits to the soft, intangible outcomes related to sustainability and broader social issues. Within the extant value creation literature, there are many perspectives on the concept of value and its generation; however there is a dearth of studies on value creation in a construction context. Through a systematic review of current literature and drawing from the stakeholder theory, this study examines the common approaches in value creation and proposes a framework to value creation for stakeholders in construction. In particular, the new framework conceptualizes two categories of value creation to construction firms and their projects: independent and co-creation. The main insights from this conceptual framework include: 1) value creation process is a strategic issue that needs to be addressed by organizations through resources exchange, information sharing, effective relational governance and continuous interactions; 2) projects, as vehicles for value creation in the construction industry, create value for stakeholders in the form of delivery outputs and overall outcomes; 3) relationships between stakeholders (i.e. transactional, cooperative and collaborative) are an effective way to maximize project value. Further research about value creation for stakeholders is essential to develop value creation theory in construction.