Gkiourka, P (2011) Managing innovation in the construction industry. PhD thesis, University of Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Many years of research on innovation has proved that innovation is the linchpin for the survival and growth of organisations. Moreover, scholars have spotted the importance of innovation in the construction industry. This research was an investigation into the management of innovation for the facilitation of the design and maintenance of a favourable environment in order to increase the potential of organisations to innovate. Supported by the notion of equifinality in open systems where an end state can be reached by many potential means, actions that facilitate innovation need to be organisation specific. Towards this end and being in line with the Schumpeterian perspective, this text emphasises the importance of increasing organisations‟ potential to innovate. A generic holistic model of innovation and a generic system for depicting innovation practice in organisations, both developed applying grounded theory techniques, are initially introduced. Then, they are combined together to illustrate a generic mechanism of innovation. This generic mechanism of innovation was applied using a survey within the specific context of the construction industry in the UK. The generic mechanism of innovation was systematised within a software program developed, named InnoAct. InnoAct can be used as a tool, which can be customised according to individual organisational characteristics, for evaluating and monitoring the innovation potential of organisations and for providing alternative scenarios which can facilitate the decision-making process towards increasing the potential to innovate. Finally, a procedure using Program Logic Modelling was developed for facilitating the systematic evaluation of organisational performance towards innovation. The proposed procedure can be used to provide trainers and researchers with a new perspective in the study of innovation management and alert managers and policy makers of their need to take appropriate actions to increase performance towards innovation and, in effect, increase economic growth.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | grounded theory; innovation; monitoring; performance; policy; economic growth; organisational performance |
| Index terms: | innovation management, program, managing innovation, survey, manager, economic growth, modelling, construction industry, organizational characteristic, survival, monitoring, organizational performance, investigation, grounded theory, decision-making process |
| Subjects: | performance measurement, economic development, theoretical framing, software systems, industry analysis, sociology, decision analysis, control systems, practitioner, innovation studies, data collection methods, environmental science, analytical methods |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Risk Management, Engineering Principles, Quality Management, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Organizational Design, Site Management, Digital Applications |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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