DBAX 9101 Week 11 Assembled Stage 1 Document Example

Stage 1 Assembled: What Small Trade Subcontractor Owners Do When General Contractors Pay Late, From Problem and Purpose to Framework and Feasibility in One Aligned Document

Student Name

Walden University

DBAX 9101: Business Research Project Stage 1

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Stage 1 Assembled: What Small Trade Subcontractor Owners Do When General Contractors Pay Late, From Problem and Purpose to Framework and Feasibility in One Aligned Document

Background of the Problem

Small specialty trade subcontractors, such as mechanical, plumbing and electrical firms, sit near the bottom of the construction contracting chain. They buy materials and pay workers before they are paid, and they are paid only when a general contractor releases funds, which often depends on when the owner of the project pays the general contractor. Peters et al. (2019) describe late payment as widespread in U.S. construction, with causes that include pay-when-paid clauses, disputes over changes and owners' funding problems. Ramachandra and Rotimi (2015) observed in New Zealand that payment problems tend to begin with project clients and move down the chain. For small firms with thin cash reserves, a delay of sixty or ninety days can be the difference between meeting payroll and missing it.

Problem Statement

In general terms, the business problem is that slow payment by general contractors drains cash from small specialty trade firms and can push them to defer investment or shut down. Two studies outside construction show the harm: suppliers whose big customers stretched payment invested less (Murfin & Njoroge, 2015), and in French trucking, a legal cap on payment terms lowered the failure rate of small carriers (Barrot, 2016). More narrowly, the specific problem is that certain small specialty trade subcontractor owners lack strategies for coping when general contractors pay them late.

Purpose Statement

As stated in Week 6, this is a qualitative multiple case study exploring the strategies small specialty trade subcontractor owners use when general contractors are slow to pay. Its participants will be the owners of four Columbus-area mechanical, plumbing or electrical firms that employ under 50 people, have operated for five years or more and have come through spells of slow payment still in business. For social change, the study aims to keep skilled trade jobs in their communities by helping such firms outlast delays.

Research Question

The question, unchanged from Week 7, asks what strategies these owners rely on to handle slow payment from the general contractors they work for. Its wording repeats the problem's key terms so that the answer speaks directly to the gap.

Alignment Across the Stage

Table 1

How the Parts Agree

Checked by reading each part against the specific business problem.

Conceptual Framework

Firms that rely on outside parties for something vital will try to shape or lessen that reliance, which is the core claim of resource dependence theory (Hillman et al., 2009). Small subcontractors depend on general contractors both for work and for cash, and late payment is one expression of the power that dependence creates. Applied here, it leads one to expect owners to spread their work over more general contractors, bargain over terms, cultivate relationships or steer clear of certain partners. Casciaro and Piskorski (2005) note that where dependence runs both ways, the weaker party may have more room to act than power imbalance alone suggests, which matters for subcontractors in scarce trades. For the money side of owners' choices, such as credit lines and billing timing, the study borrows the cash conversion cycle (Richards & Laughlin, 1980) as a secondary lens.

Nature of the Study

A qualitative multiple case study suits a question about what strategies owners use in a context that shapes those strategies (Yin, 2018). A quantitative design could measure how payment delay relates to failure but could not describe what owners do. Each case will include an interview with the owner, a follow-up interview and, where owners agree, documents such as aging reports and payment correspondence.

Significance

For practice, the study could give owners, lenders, surety agents and trade associations a concrete account of strategies that firms in their region have used to survive delay. For social change, helping established firms survive keeps skilled trade jobs in local communities. The study will not show that any strategy causes survival; its value lies in making practices visible and specific.

Feasibility and Limitations

Through the local chapter of the contractors' association, six owners who meet the criteria are known, a pair of them have said yes informally and the rest form a reserve. My insider position eases access but risks bias, so my employer and its direct competitors are excluded, and a reflective journal and peer review of early coding are planned. Guest et al. (2006) and Fusch and Ness (2015) suggest that a focused question with several data sources per case can reach saturation with a small sample; a fifth case will be added if new strategies are still emerging. Because a survivor may remember skill where luck also played a part, payment records from particular slow-pay episodes will be used to test what owners recall.

Definitions

Late payment means payment received after the date set in the subcontract or, where no date is set, more than thirty days after an approved pay application. Retainage is the share of each payment a general contractor holds until the project is complete. A strategy is any deliberate practice an owner adopts to prevent, absorb or recover from late payment, whether financial, contractual or relational.

Changes Made in Assembly

Assembling the stage exposed two inconsistencies. The feasibility sketch referred to "small contractors" while the purpose said "small specialty trade subcontracting firms"; the sketch now uses the purpose's wording. And the boundary statement excluded public projects while one draft interview question asked about bonded work; the question was removed. Nothing new has been argued in this document; everything already argued now agrees. The next stage will turn this framing into a full literature review and a detailed interview protocol for committee review.

References

Barrot, J.-N. (2016). Trade credit and industry dynamics: Evidence from trucking firms. Journal of Finance, 71(5), 1975-2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12371

Casciaro, T., & Piskorski, M. J. (2005). Power imbalance, mutual dependence, and constraint absorption: A closer look at resource dependence theory. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50(2), 167-199. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2005.50.2.167

Fusch, P. I., & Ness, L. R. (2015). Are we there yet? Data saturation in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 20(9), 1408-1416. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2281

Guest, G., Bunce, A., & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59-82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903

Hillman, A. J., Withers, M. C., & Collins, B. J. (2009). Resource dependence theory: A review. Journal of Management, 35(6), 1404-1427. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309343469

Murfin, J., & Njoroge, K. (2015). The implicit costs of trade credit borrowing by large firms. Review of Financial Studies, 28(1), 112-145. https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhu051

Peters, E., Subar, K., & Martin, H. (2019). Late payment and nonpayment within the construction industry: Causes, effects, and solutions. Journal of Legal Affairs and Dispute Resolution in Engineering and Construction, 11(3), Article 04519013. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)LA.1943-4170.0000314

Ramachandra, T., & Rotimi, J. O. B. (2015). Causes of payment problems in the New Zealand construction industry. Construction Economics and Building, 15(1), 43-55. https://doi.org/10.5130/AJCEB.v15i1.4214

Richards, V. D., & Laughlin, E. J. (1980). A cash conversion cycle approach to liquidity analysis. Financial Management, 9(1), 32-38. https://doi.org/10.2307/3665310

Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). SAGE Publications.