Innovation in Construction A European Analysis pps

[...]... firms and professionals and subcontracting linkages; the nature and quality of the interfaces and support that firms receive from government and other institutions at regional, local, national and international levels (in terms of infrastructure and support for collaboration); the impact of local and national standards and regulation; and the balance in final decision-making between short-term capital... network may not be easily reconciled and traditional approaches to construction may reinforce these differences hindering efforts to introduce innovation PART I Systems of innovation and the European construction industry 1 Corporate governance and innovation in construction in five European countries INTRODUCTION It has been argued that different institutional frameworks have comparative advantages in. .. diffuse innovative ideas and best practice and to transfer knowledge throughout the organization) and external organizational structure (linkages with external sources of information and knowledge) play an important role in promoting incremental innovations Indeed, incremental innovation is predominant in the construction industry (Gann 1994), characterized by an interactive process in which the main Corporate... firm-specific investments in innovation Institutional investors; concern with dividends leads to investments in project management and organizational innovation Income derived from abroad Relatively high stream of finance from abroad allows more stable long-term funding for innovation High stream of Low finance from abroad allows more stable long-term funding for innovation High stream of income from abroad (but... ‘sustainable’ Tighter building regulation is required to increase the minimum insulation levels and improve the sustainability of the housing stock Chapter 4 examines the factors enabling and inhibiting sustainable technologies in construction across Europe through a detailed analysis of the case of active solar heating systems Active solar heating is a sustainable technology suitable for widespread use across... effects on innovation of the internal organization of firms and their inter-organizational relations SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY The problems in applying the lessons of innovation studies are even more acute when considering sustainable technologies General studies in sustainable technologies draw insights that have some applicability for the construction industry First, although... Strabag has close relations with the automobile manufacturer Ford also linked to its board Cross-holdings may also facilitate national and European collaboration to share technological and management expertise and collaborate on research and development For example, Holzmann and Hochtief are involved in ENCORD (the European Network of Construction Companies for Research and Development), a European partnership... European collaboration, including leading Swedish and British contractors, which aims to share technical management expertise, experience in project financing and in Build, Operate, Own and Transfer BOOT projects and to raise finance for innovation Corporate governance and innovation 27 Sweden In Sweden, Germanic corporate governance features have been tempered by an Anglo-Saxon growth in stock market investment... across international markets may explain why NCC and especially Skanska have managed to maintain high dividend payments and high investments in the 1990s Also, it may enable stable long-term funding for innovation In common with the German contractors, Swedish contractors are not only decentralized geographically but also by business area.8 And, again despite extensive decentralization of management structures,... projects originating in that particular division These mechanisms are in place for supporting small-scale innovations but the central coordinating group also has responsibility for longer-term strategic innovations such as those designed to exploit new markets or which involve inter-divisional funding As argued in the section ‘Corporate Governance and Innovation in Construction, above, cross-holdings among . book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Miozzo, Marcela, 1963- Innovation in construction : a European analysis / Marcela Miozzo, Paul Dewick. p examines the factors enabling and inhibiting sustainable technologies in construction across Europe through a detailed analysis of the case of active solar heating systems. Active solar heating. that the process of innovation is distributed between and within agents, it has a long tradition of treating the individual firm as an innovating entity. Innovation studies have paid inadequate