Congratulations to Luciana Gondim de Almeida Guimaraes on her successful PhD defense!
Congratulations to Luciana Gondim de Almeida Guimaraes for brilliantly defending her doctoral thesis in wood and bio-based materials engineering on March 1, 2024, under the expert guidance of Pierre Blanchet at the Faculty of Forestry, Geography and Geomatics (FFGG) and Yan Cimon at the Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Laval University. Her project is entitled «Necessary elements for the development of a business model for the internationalization of SMEs in the prefabricated construction sector».
Congratulations Luciana on this remarkable achievement in your academic career! We wish you a future filled with success, happiness and achievement!
The jury members were: Marie-Hélène Vandersmissen (President, FFGG), Pierre Blanchet (Research Director, FFGG), Yan Cimon (Co-Research Director, Faculty of Business Administration), Nancy Gélinas (Examiner, FFGG) and Amin Chaabane (External Examiner, École de technologie supérieure).
Thesis title:Â Necessary elements for the development of a business model for the internationalization of SMEs in the prefabricated construction sector
Summary: Companies in Quebec’s prefabricated wood construction sector have perceived an opportunity in the North American export market due to their growth rate and geographic proximity. Moreover, increasing product exports is a strategy encouraged by the Quebec government. The goal is to increase exports of prefabricated buildings, mainly made of wood, from $390 million in 2016 to $3 billion by 2030.
This thesis aims to propose the elements needed to develop a business model for the internationalization of alliances between SMEs in the prefabricated wood construction sector.
The results showed that networks, particularly clusters, are a form of collaboration widely explored in the literature, especially in applied research. Although the literature review emphasizes the importance of clusters as a mode of collaboration between SMEs, this collaboration requires the participation of organizations other than companies, such as the government, NPOs, universities, etc. In addition, other forms of cooperation, such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, etc., are also explored. In addition, other forms of collaboration, such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, and consortiums, have proved relevant to SMEs. An analytical risk structure has been developed for the entire prefabricated wood construction sector and can be used by companies wishing to start an alliance. Thirty-six risks were identified, comprising 21 operational risks and 15 financial risks. Comparing the criticality of the operational and financial risks identified, it appears that the financial risks are more critical. A proposed conceptual framework incorporates the dynamic capabilities associated with governance choice factors. The results indicate that companies need to identify and develop their capabilities to assess governance choice factors. Most of the factors for the two alliances analyzed suggest that they should adopt an equity-based governance structure. Thus, the joint venture emerges as an appropriate choice in line with these analytical criteria