Abstract for ACERE 2015 conference

Traditionally construction industries in New Zealand and abroad have a low track record for successful sustainable innovations. This has a negative impact on private and government spending, and on quality, society and the environment.

This conceptual paper posits that the construction industry needs non-incremental (i.e. architectural, system, radical, modular) sustainable technology innovations to make drastic improvements. Such innovations often come from entrepreneurial (small) firms from other industries or at the beginning of supply chains and must be procured and adopted further into such chains. However, after an extensive literature review it remains unclear how entrepreneurial firms procure non-incremental sustainable technology innovations for the construction industry. The paper focuses on procurement activities of entrepreneurial firms in the New Zealand context. These activities interact with (internal and external) innovation activities for an optimal firm performance. They are affected by clusters of internal and external variables.

The ACERE paper discusses extant literature, a conceptual framework, main propositions, research aims and the choice for a focus group method.  The picture below shows the current conceptual framework with dominant variables as found in literature. These will be tested in alternating rounds of focus group studies and case studies. The research is part of a doctoral project. (Back to XMAS post).