A STUDY ON AGGRAVATION OF EXPLOITATION PROBLEMS IN SUBCONTRACTING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES

Abstract

 For sustainable infrastructure development, it is essential to create an environment in which all companies, including small and medium-sized enterprises, can operate stably. However, in Japan, it has been pointed out for many years that the ``Exploitation problem'' in the subcontracting relationship between companies has become a major obstacle to the management of small and medium-sized enterprises, and its solution has been called into question. In this study, we performed an analysis that expanded the subcontracting definition used in quantitative analysis, which had never been done before, and an analysis that included the "construction industry", which was often treated as an exception. As a result, there is a possibility that the problem of exploitation is likely to occur in ``business-to-business transactions'', and it is indirectly suggested that the problem of exploitation has worsened since around 1980 in the manufacturing industry and around 1990 in the service industry. Furthermore, in the construction industry, the exploitation problem has been worsening over the long term since at least 1992, and it was suggested that subcontractors in particular may play a role as buffers for the economic fluctuations of prime contractors.