Narrative shapes innovation: a study on multiple innovations in the UK construction industry

Abstract

The nature of the construction industry is different from other sectors due to the unique and temporary nature of projects which makes incremental improvements difficult necessitating the need to understand the practice of innovation. This research aims to explore the role of narratives in shaping innovation, as these provide a way to manage the tensions prevalent in the industry. We study 133 innovations across different construction projects in the UK and seek to understand the role of narratives in motivating these innovations. For instance, “innovations that enable project completion,” “innovations that improve productivity,” “innovations in health and safety” and “innovations in sustainability” are discussed. Whilst we acknowledge that factors such as incentives and rewards can motivate innovation, we argue that narratives shape or guide innovation in a particular direction. Since construction projects are interorganizational and multileveled, the industry-level narratives need to be adopted by firms to enable innovations at project sites. Innovators actively look for areas where they can intervene, and narratives improve the visibility of some areas thereby guiding innovations to them.