A Systematic Approach for Evaluating Innovation Management in Construction Companies

Abstract

The increasing competition within the construction industry has created a growing concern for innovation, being appreciated as an important lever for competitive advantage. However, despite its need, there are some critical barriers that make innovation in construction very difficult. In addition, the perceived risk of innovation is almost unacceptable to the sector's culture. These factors limit the innovation efforts being made. Thus, appropriate mechanisms are needed to overcome these limitations and propose actions to promote innovation and innovation management in constructions’ firms. The aim of this paper is to describe an approach to innovation management that includes a system for evaluating the status of innovation management in construction companies (SEGi by its acronym in Spanish), i.e., all activities undertaken by a company to integrate innovation opportunities to improve its performance. The system has been structured based on both quantitative and qualitative methods, whose application allows evaluating the state of innovation management and generating proposals for actions to solve the detected limitations. The research methodology is described together with the development of the system for evaluating innovation management, the results of the study of three construction companies that participated in the application of the system and the main conclusions of the study. The proposed evaluation system can be used to promote the development and improvement of innovation capabilities within construction companies. Additional results of the study are the identification of six major innovation drivers that are important for construction companies.