Against the odds: Small firms in Australia successfully introducing new technology on construction projects

Manley, Karen

doi:10.1016/j.respol.2008.07.013

Cited by 76 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…One major reason that novel product innovations achieve fit is directly related to high levels of inter-organisational knowledge sharing (Acha, 2008;Gann & Salter, 2000;Manley, 2008). PBFs introducing innovative products go to great lengths to reduce the technological and market uncertainty surrounding an innovation, by investing time and resources in the coordination of the design, and coordinating specifics of production, of the novel products across the network of customers, suppliers, and even regulators (Acha, 2008).…”

Section: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…PBFs introducing innovative products go to great lengths to reduce the technological and market uncertainty surrounding an innovation, by investing time and resources in the coordination of the design, and coordinating specifics of production, of the novel products across the network of customers, suppliers, and even regulators (Acha, 2008). The projects that PBFs participate in most often serve as the backdrop for these knowledge flows (Gann & Salter, 2000;Manley, 2008). In complex construction projects, for instance, high levels of knowledge transfers occur at the front end of projects where modelling, simulation, and testing of designs require the integration of knowledge from complex supplier networks, each with distinct engineering and other specialist competencies (Gann & Salter, 2000).…”

Section: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is because the (limited) project literature appears to acquiesce to (rather than critically investigate) the importance of the customer in the innovation process (Blindenbach-Driessen and Van Den Ende, 2010;Manley, 2008), and largely ignores the important role that suppliers provide (Martinsuo & Ahola, 2010). Taking this one step further, there has been no apparent study of the effects of simultaneous customer and supplier embeddedness, specifically the impact of one on the other.…”

Section: Study 3: Structural Embeddednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Resolving these interfaces requires significant knowledge flows across firm boundaries (Acha, 2008), and in particular with customers and suppliers directly involved in the projects that the firm is participating in and supporting (Gann & Salter, 2000;Manley, 2008). Tacit knowledge dimensions are thought to be particularly important for PBFs in the resolution of these interfaces, due to the close working relationships between firms in the development of collective innovations within project contexts (Gann & Salter, 2000).…”

Section: Gap #2: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…That is, PBFs draw on ideas from the network and then work iteratively with customers and suppliers and other project participants in order to successfully translate these ideas into novel product innovations within project contexts (Manley, 2008). The high-quality sharing of tacit information to support such innovation outcomes is a result of the network form of organising (Jones et al, 2007).…”

Section: Figure 3 -Open Innovation Typologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Novel product innovation in project-based firms: explaining innovation where interdependent firms deliver complex system-level outcomes

Ford¹

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Project-based firms (PBFs) are an increasingly important firm type in today's projectdriven world. Over the next two decades, PBFs will transform nearly $60 trillion into complex product systems (CoPS) that comprise the communication, energy, and transportation infrastructure of our modern global economy. In the process, they will participate in a collective technological development process that is iterative, intensely interorganisational, and dominated by their participation in large industry projects. In this environment, PBFs will deliver components, subsystems, and CoPS, some being novel products that are new to the world. These are called CoPS-related novel products.However, the current understanding of how PBFs introduce CoPS-related novel products is lacking. In general, the existing innovation literature does not provide an adequate inter-organisational perspective, which is necessary to explain the development of new The CoPS innovation literature itself remains too focused on the role of large system integrators, and not on the broader network of firms that support innovation. This leaves unscrutinised rest of the 'project-based productive network' of firms delivering products (components, technologies, and subsystems) into the higher-level CoPS. Taken together, the current literature inadequately addresses many factors that are important to novel product innovation in PBFs. Therefore, the central research question this thesis aims to answer is: What factors facilitate PBFs' ability to introduce novel product innovations in environments where interdependent firms deliver complex system-level outcomes?Three specific challenges are imperative to understanding novel product introduction in PBFs. The first relates to the project-based nature of organising, which means that PBFs have contingent opportunities for novel product innovation, depending upon the circumstances of the projects they conduct. This is called the contingent opportunities problem. The second challenge is that PBFs have to ensure that their innovations are compatible with our technologies in their environment. This is called the technological interdependencies problem. The third challenge is that PBFs have enduring interorganisational commitments that extend across the projects they conduct. This is called the enduring relationships problem.ii Novel product innovation in project-based firms Three research studies were designed and conducted to address the three specific challenges. The research is based on survey data collected from PBFs in the Australian upstream oil and gas industry. Study 1 investigates capabilities that PBFs use to overcome the contingent opportunities problems. This study finds that firms use an adaptive problemsolving capability to recognise opportunities within projects, and are reliant on networking capabilities to bring about novel product innovations. Study 2 investigates how PBFs use both inbound and outbound non-pecuniary open innovation practices to resolve technological interdependencies. This stud...

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Section: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Study 3: Structural Embeddednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gap #2: Technological Interdependenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Figure 3 -Open Innovation Typologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Novel product innovation in project-based firms: explaining innovation where interdependent firms deliver complex system-level outcomes

Ford¹

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Factors Influencing Local Government Capital Works Procurement: Developing a Research Agenda

Vitartas

Flynn

Brown

et al. 2012

Engineering Asset Management and Infrastructure Sustainability

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Exploring differences in level of construction innovation: an empirical analysis in China

Zhang

Chen

Zhang

et al. 2023

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Innovations can overcome constraints posed by resources depletion, increasing environmental and ecological protection concerns. There is considerable amount of innovation that occurs in the construction industry. Accordingly, construction innovation is receiving increasing attention in China. However, the provincial development level of construction innovation remains unclear. To address this gap, the present study employs data-driven measurement for the level of construction innovation. A total of 25 alternative indexes were selected based on the innovation ecosystem theory. Then, text preprocessing, statistical methods, and search statistics were employed to acquire index data. The indexes weights were determined through expert scoring and a cloud model. The quantitative measurement of the level of construction innovation was nally performed. Additionally, the exploratory results were revealed with the analyses of the overall, regional and cluster. The results revealed that overall level of construction innovation in China is not high and regional distribution is uneven. Simultaneously, the level of construction innovation is consistent with local economic strength and it is most sensitive to innovation output in regional level. Moreover, the spatial distribution of the level of construction innovation in China was showed, which similarity with the characteristics of geographical location is. The measurement system this study represents breakthroughs over traditional methods that rely on statistics, cases or questionnaires, which can be applied to other research elds. IntroductionThe construction industry, one of the largest economic sectors, is critical to the functioning of a domestic economy in China (Murray and Langford, 1998). The construction industry has a wide range of responsibilities, include improving living standards of people, boosting employment and protecting environment (Manseau, 1998). However, buildings consume 46.5% of Chinese energy, produce more than 1.8 billion tons of the waste, and contribute 51.3% of CO 2 emissions (China Building Energy Research Report 2018). It is widely accepted that the productive activities of the construction industry consume signi cant amounts of resources and negatively impact the ecological balance (Peter et al., 2012). Innovation promotes sustainable development and bene ts, such as: energy consumption reductions, environment protections and productivity advancements (Sexton and Barrett, 2003). Construction innovation, which has drawn wide attention within the world, is a determinant of the sustainable development of this industry and national growth. (Panuwatwanich and Stewart, 2012).Construction innovation, which includes product, process, marketing and organizational innovation, represents the changes through something new and can bring bene ts or improvements in cost, time, quality, safety and environment (Maria and Victor, 1995;Pierce and Delbecq, 1977;Bygballe and Ingemansson, 2014;Bassioni et al., 2004;). The innovation in the construction industry is...

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Against the odds: Small firms in Australia successfully introducing new technology on construction projects

Cited by 76 publications

References 35 publications

Novel product innovation in project-based firms: explaining innovation where interdependent firms deliver complex system-level outcomes

Novel product innovation in project-based firms: explaining innovation where interdependent firms deliver complex system-level outcomes

Factors Influencing Local Government Capital Works Procurement: Developing a Research Agenda

Exploring differences in level of construction innovation: an empirical analysis in China

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