How companies without the benefit of authority create innovation through collaboration

To create new business firms develop and provide systems that are new to the market.\ud However, if a firm wants to achieve this goal but does not possess all required resources\ud and capabilities, it needs cooperation from other organizations. This study focuses\ud on how firms that lack authority to compel such cooperation, gain and foster\ud commitment from other organizations to cooperate. To develop a model that addresses\ud this question two cases of interorganizational innovation from the Dutch construction\ud industry were studied. In both cases an organization set up and coordinated a\ud network of organizations to jointly develop and market a new system. The cases suggest\ud that, in particular, three types of activities of such leading organizations affect\ud other organizations' commitment to cooperate. These include two types of activities\ud that correspond with two extensively researched constructs, champion behavior and\ud supportive leadership, and one type of activity whose influence is more indirect, value\ud proposition management. Overall, both cases can be regarded as examples of innovation\ud and value chain integration, two issues identified as industry deficiencies in various\ud countries

Reconstructing the rationale behind a public client's first application of PPI

Public Procurement for Innovation (PPI) is expected to leverage demand-side innovation in sectors such as transport and infrastructure. However, to make that happen, public clients must be willing to apply PPI. How does a public client of the construction industry come to choose for, develop and apply particular PPI procurement approaches? To explore the rationale for PPI from a public client's perspective, the reasoning behind a client's first application of a PPI-like procurement system is reconstructed in a case study. Assuming that the particular features of this system ultimately are related to overall strategy, two major concepts are used to guide this reconstruction: strategic alignment and procedural rationality. The results show how in this case PPI is triggered by, and across multiple levels of strategy is aligned with, ministerial strategy. An additional gain of this study is that it suggests how strategic alignment between a particular procurement system and overall organizational strategy could be achieved in a deliberate manner. The client is commonly viewed as an important driver for innovation. Observing that construction management literature on PPI is limited, the creation of an in-depth insight in a public client's rationale for PPI contributes to the further understanding of the client's role in innovation

Achieving the unlikely: innovating in the loosely coupled construction system

Previous research suggests that a characteristic of the construction industry is a lack of technological innovation. Since this is seen as a problem, much theoretical development within construction management focuses on explaining the lack of innovation. Less effort has been expended on using such explanatory theories for investigating those rare exceptions in which construction firms succeed in the unlikely: successfully developing a new technology. This article makes use of the recently suggested framework by Dubois and Gadde. They describe the construction industry as a 'loosely coupled system' with four types of couplings, discuss why the particular mix of couplings in the construction system leads to a lack of innovation, and suggest types of couplings that construction firms should experiment with and change in order to boost innovation. A case study of a contractor developing a new technology is presented in terms of Dubois and Gadde's concepts and implications. The findings partly support and partly contradict their hypotheses. It seems that innovation is possible even if only a few of the existing couplings are changed. The most important changes relate to the tightening of intrafirm sequential inter-project couplings enabling learning from project to project, and contract-related couplings especially the design-construction interface

Achieving the unlikely: innovating in the loosely coupled construction system

Previous research suggests that a characteristic of the construction industry is a lack of technological innovation. Since this is seen as a problem, much theoretical development within construction management focuses on explaining the lack of innovation. Less effort has been expended on using such explanatory theories for investigating those rare exceptions in which construction firms succeed in the unlikely: successfully developing a new technology. This article makes use of the recently suggested framework by Dubois and Gadde. They describe the construction industry as a 'loosely coupled system' with four types of couplings, discuss why the particular mix of couplings in the construction system leads to a lack of innovation, and suggest types of couplings that construction firms should experiment with and change in order to boost innovation. A case study of a contractor developing a new technology is presented in terms of Dubois and Gadde's concepts and implications. The findings partly support and partly contradict their hypotheses. It seems that innovation is possible even if only a few of the existing couplings are changed. The most important changes relate to the tightening of intrafirm sequential inter-project couplings enabling learning from project to project, and contract-related couplings especially the design-construction interface.

Increased cooperation through immediate post contractual negotiation

Traditional contracting has been largely shown to cause adversarial relationships between client and contractor in the construction sector. This leads to claims during construction by contractors, which increase transaction costs for both parties in the form of policing and enforcement costs. In literature, partnering is widely advocated as a governance form to more cooperative relationships between client and contractor. The partnering approach, however, requires a significant investment in elaborating a specific procurement approach, and is therefore regarded as inappropriate for small, one-off, less complex projects which are of low strategic importance. Municipal governments in the Netherlands are searching for alternative solutions to increase cooperation with contractors and reduce transaction costs by applying immediate post contractual negotiations in traditionally procured projects. We studied four such municipal projects which have showed that immediate post contractual negotiations positively influence cooperation as it creates joint risks analysis and management, stimulates a reduction of design errors, stimulates design and planning optimization, provides a platform for joint problem solving, leads the contractor to involve key participants early in the process, and leads them to align goals and expectations. We observed these effects that partnering aims to achieve despite the initial traditional procurement procedures applied in these projects. These negotiations seem to reduce the transaction costs of traditional procurement making them particularly applicable in smaller projects where high set up costs would not be justifiable due to their limited size, complexity, or cost

Utility coordination as both loose and very tightly coupled processes

Privatization of the utilities sector created a fragmented multi-client, multi-contractor system in which reconstruction works are, in fact, a constellation of multiple smaller projects. During planning stages, these projects are loosely coupled, since stakeholders limitedly align construction plans. Consequently, coordination of unresolved issues moves toward construction stages, creating very tight on-site couplings. This paper focuses on the coordination activities that balance these loose and very tight couplings in the planning and execution stages of utility reconstruction. To this end, we identified seven well-performing 'utility coordinators' and conducted ethnographic interviews to explore their work practices. To better characterize these different practices, we introduce level of involvement and moment of involvement as two dimensions for coordination within loose and tightly coupled systems. Based on this, we distinguish two dominant approaches for coordination in utility coordination practice: pro-active involvement in early planning stages, and reactive approaches during execution stages. Findings complement to literature by providing dimensions for coordination of loosely coupled systems. Consecutive research efforts should aim at validating these findings and at identifying contextual factors that drive various distinctive coordination approaches.Non UBCUnreviewedFacultyOthe

Innovation and interorganizational cooperation: a synthesis of literature

Purpose – In construction, literature interorganizational cooperation is argued to be an important\ud aspect of construction innovation. From this perspective, several distinct bodies of literature provide\ud relevant insights. In literature on complex product systems (CoPS), it is argued that construction\ud industry is a CoPS industry and that in CoPS industries systems integrators set-up and coordinate\ud interorganizational innovation. Furthermore, various bodies of literature provide information about\ud factors that affect the success of innovation and interorganizational cooperation. The purpose of this\ud paper is to integrate the findings from these bodies of literature.\ud Design/methodology/approach – To uncover the present state of knowledge about systems\ud integrators, a comprehensive literature review is conducted. Furthermore, the paper analyzes various\ud fields of literature to derive an overview of factors which have been empirically related to the success\ud of innovation and interorganizational cooperation.\ud Findings – First, this paper structures the current knowledge on the role and characteristics of\ud systems integrators. Subsequently, the paper translates this knowledge to the context of construction\ud industry and discusses the basis for classifying a firm as a systems integrator in construction\ud industry. Furthermore, the paper presents a list of relevant success factors derived from literature on\ud new product development, strategic networks and alliances, open innovation, and construction\ud innovation.\ud Originality/value – By integrating various bodies of literature, this paper provides a solid base for\ud future theory development on how firms achieve interorganizational innovation in construction\ud industry