Many businesses organise activities as projects when they need to coordinate loose networks of individuals and firms in order to complete specific, discrete tasks. Some use research and development (R&D) and technical support functions for problem-solving on projects. Yet firms working in this...

This paper explores the sources of ideas for innovation in engineering design. The paper shows that engineering designers involved in complex, non-routine design processes rely heavily on face-to-face conversations with other designers for solving problems and developing new innovative ideas....

While construction is often seen as a low-technology sector, it has witnessed substantial changes in practices, processes, technology and performance over the past 20 years. Understanding the sources of these changes is important for innovation strategy and policy to improve performance within...

This paper extends theoretical and empirical debates on knowledge transfer practices in geographically dispersed project teams using a range of communications media. It presents quantitative data comparing work interactions between dispersed and co-located teams in five international,...

This paper contrasts the attitudes of firms towards innovation from the construction sector with those in services and manufacturing, using data from the UK innovation survey. We examine the liabilities that construction firms face in their innovative activities in comparison to other sectors,...

Construction skills and training needs have changed with the introduction of new business processes, different forms of organizing production and technical innovation. In the UK, training provision has failed to adapt fully to the needs of a modernizing industry. Formal training programmes have...

This paper focuses on how knowledge is produced by academics and on mechanisms for and constraints upon absorbing new ideas within the construction sector. It draws upon two bodies of work: Cohen and Levinthal's concept of 'absorptive capacity' and Gibbons and coworkers' 'new production of...

This book illustrates that, although innovation has always mattered in economic development, simply increasing expenditure in creating knowledge may not be the answer: we need to look at the whole system through which such knowledge translates to value creation.