creator Taghizadeh Khamesi, Hossein advisor Arditi, David Flexibility is a key factor for an organization survival in a changing environment. Considering the cyclical nature of construction demand, organizational flexibility is of special importance in construction company management. Most previous studies tried to categorize the response strategies of construction contractors to business and environmental changes. However, there is gap in the literature about the dynamic effect of organizational flexibility on the growth and competitiveness in construction companies. The objective of this study is to investigate the organizational flexibility of top construction contractors in the U.S. Engineering News-Records (ENR) top 400 contractors lists were used to collect data for the 52-year period 1963-2015. Using the collected data, several analyses were performed to find the relationship between organizational flexibility and competitive success. This attempt did not indicate a distinct relationship between organizational flexibility and competitiveness. It was found however that organizational flexibility is affected by change in the economy and that it was linked to company expansion/contraction. It is concluded that organizational flexibility is an essential advantage for construction contractors. Those contractors that are consistently ranked in the top 400 contractors list respond well to economic changes by expanding and contracting. On the other hand, different size contractors respond to changes in the economy differently, based on their resources and the nature of their work. In addition, this study concluded that those contractors that seek high growth rates face more fluctuations in their growth path and need more flexibility in response to them. Submitted by Erma Thomas (thomase@iit.edu) on 2016-07-18T21:58:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 etdadmin_upload_425085.zip: 2944365 bytes, checksum: 648c31fe929d12bb86c270f948d4e596 (MD5) Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-18T21:58:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 etdadmin_upload_425085.zip: 2944365 bytes, checksum: 648c31fe929d12bb86c270f948d4e596 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05 M.S. in Civil Engineering, May 2016 2016 2016-05 http://hdl.handle.net/10560/3874 en competitiveness and flexibility construction companies ENR top contractors list flexibility and firms size growth rate and flexibility organizational flexibility Thesis born digital application/pdf In Copyright http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/ Restricted Access CAEE / Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Illinois Institute of Technology Affiliated department