Korean construction industry is facing a serious challenge in the nation's gradual process of market opening to the foreign companies. A lot of world class construction companies are entering the Korean market and will compete with domestic construction companies. Korean government has recently announced its policy of enforcing the introduction of CM(Construction Management) to strengthen the competitiveness of the Korean construction companies. While CM is recognized as a new construction service in the Korean market, it will have to prove its customer benefit in market to succeed as a new way of business. However, it is more important to consider first which segment of Korean construction market is suitable to apply CM in the introduction stage. A framework to analyze CM practice is proposed using the variables of project complexity and customer capability of construction project management. Four case studies are presented based on the proposed framework. It is found that the cell of high project complexity and low customer capability of construction project management is the best appropriate segment to apply CM service.
