Dulaimi, M F and Kumaraswamy, M M (2000) Procuring for innovation: The integrating role of innovation in construction procurement. In: Akintoye, A (ed.) Proceedings of 16th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2000, Glasgow, UK.
Abstract
Innovation has been one of the key issues in recent business and research agendas of business organisations and all their stakeholders. Meanwhile, a number of reviews around the world have raised grave concerns on the state of the construction industry. The perceived dearth of R&D activities and innovations is often cited as the main issue that has stunted the development of construction organisations. Recent research has argued that the development process in construction from concept, to detailed design and construction is akin to the process of using R&D to deliver successful innovations in manufacturing industries. This paper develops and compares two models describing the organisation and process of innovation and that of construction procurement. The study shows that one of the key differences to be that the development of the "idea" of the new product in manufacturing has the ability to generate a centrifugal force that would pull together several competing paradigms. The fact that there is no "captured" customer in the manufacturing industry as in construction seems to pull the different parties and disciplines together more strongly in order to ensure a successful product. This points to the potentially integrative benefits of innovations in construction procurement systems in the first instance; and secondly across related operational, educational-training and technological systems.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | creativity; group dynamics; innovation; procurement; risk |
| Index terms: | manufacturing industry, creativity, research agenda, construction organization, construction industry, design and construction, construction procurement, group dynamics, paradigm |
| Subjects: | organization, contractual arrangements, education and knowledge transfer, sociology, research management, innovation and creative processes, industry analysis |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Design Practice, Procurement, Business Strategy, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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