Research on the Dynamic Mechanisms of the Synergetic Development of Construction Industry Clusters

Exploring pathways for sustainable synergistic development is a challenging issue for the construction industry, which is currently in a critical period of transformation. Current research has confirmed that industrial clusters are an important organizational form for promoting sustainable synergistic development. However, the existing research on construction industry clusters has overly focused on cluster attribute analysis and evaluation. Investigating the core mechanisms of synergistic development within construction industry clusters is particularly crucial. From the perspectives of ecological and synergetic theories, this paper constructs the ecosystem of the construction industry cluster and analyzes its synergistic development process. It identifies the driving factors of the synergistic development of the construction industry cluster and uses the ISM model to determine the structural hierarchical relationships among factors. Taking Shandong Province as the data sample, this study employs the Haken model to conduct an empirical investigation of the level of synergy and its driving mechanisms, establishing a three-stage framework for the driving mechanisms. The results show the following results: (1) Operating efficiency and innovation ability are the top factors to promote the synergistic development of the construction industry. (2) Market demand, as an order parameter, is an important condition for triggering and amplifying fluctuations in the construction industry cluster system, and it acts as a controlling factor to promote the system’s self-organization evolution to a new ordered and stable state. (3) The construction industry cluster in Shandong Province is in the initial stage of low synergy and is gradually evolving to moderate synergy. From a new research perspective, this study helps construction industry planners and policymakers understand the mechanisms of evolution and key driving factors of construction industry clusters.