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The authors use the resource-based view of the firm to frame the direct, relative, and synergistic effects of three firm relational resources (i.e., customer relationships, business-partner social capital, and governing-agency social capital) on firm performance (strategic and financial) in a sample of 262 businesses that operate in metropolitan Chinese cities. Although the findings indicate that all three relational resources enhance performance, they also indicate that customer relationships are the primary drivers of strategic and financial performance and that business partnerships and governing-agency social capital have a synergistic influence. In addition, the results indicate that the influences of these resources are moderated by domestic or international firm ownership. The authors discuss the implications for academics and practitioners.In today's business environment, relational resources, such as customer relationships (Bendapudi and Berry 1997; Srivastava, Fahey, and Christensen 2001) and social capital (i.e., an intangible asset that is created through social relations that can be leveraged to facilitate action and achieve and sustain a competitive advantage) with business partners and governing agencies (Gulati and Gargiulo 1999;Oliver 1990;Peng and Luo 2000), are viewed as strategic resources. However, despite the growing empirical and theoretical research on customer relationships and social capital, significant gaps appear in the literature. First, whereas researchers have identified customer relationships and social capital as important firm relational resources, scholars have not explored their influences relative to one another, most notably because of their development in divergent research streams. The lack of a relative perspective is a noteworthy limitation, given that differences in performance effects could have substantial theoretical and managerial implications. Because the developments of customer relationships and social capital are costly strategic initiatives, understanding the relative influence of each provides firms with greater strategic direction. Second, researchers have yet to explore the synergistic effects of social capital resources. As such, it is unclear whether the effects of business-partner and governingagency social capital are most effective when developed individually or jointly. Third, little is known about the moderating influence of firm-ownership structure (i.e., domestic

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been adopted as the main technology in the construction industry in many developed countries due to its notable advantages. However, its applications in developing countries are limited. This paper aims to investigate factors which impact on BIM adoption in the construction industry. Twelve external variables were identified by an integrated TAM (Technology Acceptance Model) and TOE (Technology Organization Environment) framework and a systematic review of past studies. A survey was conducted in development, construction, design and consulting companies to investigate the impacts of these 12 external variables on BIM adoption. Using the interval Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method, retrieved 120 completed questionnaires were analysed. The “Requirements from national policies” was found to be the most significant driving variable of BIM adoption by investigated companies. A further simulation analysis revealed that the “Intention to Use” BIM varied significantly with the change of “Requirements from national policies”, “Standardization of BIM”, and “Popularity of BIM in the industry”. The results lead to the conclusion that government incentives play critical roles in BIM adoption in China. Policy makers could put more efforts into motivation strategies, standardization measures, and BIM culture cultivation to promote BIM applications in the construction industry.

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Although one of the key objectives of relationship marketing is to build a strong relationship with customers, the construct of relationship strength is recent and there is little research into its measurement and validation. Based on an intensive literature review, relationship strength is conceptualised and a tridimensional measurement model is proposed that comprises affective strength, cognitive strength and conative strength. Then, a measurement scale of relationship strength in the context of selling services is developed and validated. The empirical results indicate that the measurement scale has acceptable levels of reliability, unidimensionality, convergent validity, discriminant validity and nomological validity.