Exploring Key Influence Factors And Mechanism On Construction Innovation

Abstract:Innovation is an important issue in economic and social development. With the rapid development of construction industry in China, innovation in construction is catching widespread attention. Currently, construction innovation is facing the dual challenges in theory and in practice. Though the construction scale and technology in China have been ranked among the top of the world, the engineering management level still falls behind. In general, the construction industry is still a traditional industry; construction innovation is facing a series of problems. These practical issues reflect the profound theoretical issues, such as:lack of theoretical framework in strategic management, urgent need to break through enterprise boundaries to set up a new organizational model, efficiency of knowledge management mechanism in the process of innovation, and so on. To solve these problems, it is a must to strengthen the understanding of substantial rules such as the key factors and its mechanism of construction innovation.Based on the definition of the connotation of construction innovation, intensive literature research is conducted in three main aspects:factor analysis, framework integration and performance evaluation. The results of the analysis show that the perspective of project engineering is becoming a hotspot and trend in research, and with the combination of network organization, knowledge management and construction engineering, a new space for the study of construction innovation is opened up. However, the existing researches are not systematical; one important reason is the lack of complete and acknowledged theoretical framework of construction innovation, as well as effective research methods. Based on the complex product system innovation theory, and engineering innovation theory, the research framework of this paper is put forward after the integration of three existing generations of construction innovation framework. Literature research, survey research, statistical analysis, case study, theoretical analysis and other methods are used on the basis of hybrid research paradigm.This article first forms the initial list of construction innovation factors by retrieving, reading, analyzing and sorting all the existing literature about construction innovation factors which were published during the period of1984to2013through the Engineering Village database. Second, supplements and adjusts the initial list on the basis of expert interviews and questionnaire surveys. Last, the factor list of construction innovation is proposed, including9environmental factors,17organization factors and14management factors.On the basis of construction innovation factors identified above, this paper design scales for exploratory factor analysis. It is revealed that construction innovation factors can be summed up in nine key factors:macroeconomic environment, engineering requirements, senior support and commitment, boundary spanning, resources, organizational climate and culture, contractual governmence, relational governmence and knowledge management. On this basis, structural equation model is built in three aspects:environment, organization and management to conduct hypothesis testing and analyze the mechanism of how the key factors affect innovation performance. The research shows that:engineering requirements promote and facilitate innovation performance directly while macroeconomic environment affects innovation performance by acting on the engineering requirements; senior support and commitment are of great significance to the improvement of innovation performance since it determines the resource inputs; organizational boundary spanning is an important characteristic of construction innovation, its realization starts with cultivating organizational climate and culture; to improve the capability of knowledge management, coupling covariant of contractual governmence and relational governmence is an essential way, reasonable management mechanism design is the foundation while relational governmence such as communication and coordination is an important guarantee; knowledge management has direct effect on the improvement of innovation performance.Referring to results from these analysis, it is important to build construction innovation dynamic mechanism, create a favorable environment for market competition, continue to deepen the reform of construction investment system, strengthen government support, and choose within-trade planning model; build construction innovation network organization, foster system integrators, strengthen the dominant position of owners, and create a collaborative innovation platform based on the construction project; build an incentive compatibility, collaborative and dynamic feedback control system.The mechanism and routine of driving factors, organizational forms, resource integration, management mechanisms, and implementation ways in SH successful model are systematically summarized through case studies in this thesis.The research is conducted from the perspective of engineering, and in the level of construction project, which is a breakthrough of traditional technology perspective as well as industry and enterprise level. In this thesis, a model of construction innovation framework is built, and key factors of construction innovation are pointed out while their working mechanism is analyzed. Researches in this thesis can provide valuable insights in recognizing the relationship between construction innovation and environment, construction innovation and organization, along with knowledge management and other aspects. It has reference value for the management of construction innovation in building construction and infrastructure construction. This thesis contains30figures,35tables and138references.