From focus on price to the pyramid of innovation, information, cooperation, value and trust: A success story of five Swedish building material manufacturers

Sundqvist, J (2008) From focus on price to the pyramid of innovation, information, cooperation, value and trust: A success story of five Swedish building material manufacturers. Construction Economics and Building, 8(2), pp. 11-22. ISSN 2204-9029

Abstract

In the building sector, value for thecustomer, is often regarded as being valuefor money and this, in turn, is achieved bymeans of competitive tendering. However,there are companies that also focus oninnovation as a competitive parameter intheir contribution; hereafter referred to asinnovative companies. Five managingdirectors from innovative companies inSweden were interviewed about howinnovation is dealt with in their respectivecompanies. As well as the importance ofinformation, this study points to twoadditional important factors for innovation,namely cooperation with a carefullychosen partner and the transference ofvalues to the employees. Those innovativecompanies made careful choices and usemeans of information, cooperation, valueand vision to create innovation in order tobuild trust for the company and for itsproducts and services.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: benchmarking; cooperation; information; innovation; trust; value; vision
Index terms: manufacturer, benchmarking, cooperation, innovative company, building material, competitive tendering
Subjects: building materials, performance measurement, psychology, tendering, practitioner, innovation studies
Topics: Quality Management, Procurement, Organizational Design, Design Practice, Business Strategy, Roles and Professions
Descriptive scope: 2 PC

N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here