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Erbas, I (2013) Construction management project delivery system as a form of project implementation in Turkish public procurement, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Department of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University.

ILTER, A.T. (2011) Evaluation of Contracting Firms' Innovation Approaches, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Institute of Science and Technology, Istanbul Technical University.

• Type: Thesis
• Keywords: innovation; R&D; contracting firms; construction industry; construction management
• ISBN/ISSN:
• URL: https://polen.itu.edu.tr/handle/11527/4965
• Abstract:
  

  Innovation is widely regarded as one of the key issues of national economic growth and competitiveness. Innovations enable firms to adopt major changes in the industry or fulfil the very needs of specific project or project groups. Measurement of innovation and implementing it as a corporate culture is considered necessary as it is one of the key factors of development and to achieve competitive advantage by adopting change. Measuring innovation is a widely debated issue in construction management literature as is in management literature. Complex nature of its structure as a system complicates measuring innovations by associating many criterions interacting with each other. Research on innovation is still in progress and particularly research on measurement of innovations is very limited on Turkish construction industry literature. Aim of this study is, to capture and analyse R&D, innovation performance and information technologies (IT) strategy approaches of contractors with a survey and provide appropriate data to conduct firm based and regional/national strategy and policies. First, Turkish Statistics Institute’s (TurkStat) regular sectoral research are examined to capture the innovativeness profile of Turkish construction industry from the national data available. Although some data on innovativeness of the construction industry were captured from the micro data research, a new survey have had to be designed as the data were insufficient to assess Turkish contractors’ innovativeness. Parallel to this research, literature survey was conducted to scrutinize the drivers and barriers, diffusion of innovations including the institutionalization needed for it and the proper metrics for measuring construction innovation. Findings of these research steps were all published as papers. Under the light of the gathered information, an extensive survey was designed aiming large construction companies which have considerable impacts on Turkish economy in the means of construction sector. As for the sampling a professional organization and an independent foreign establishment’s ‘top international contractors’ list were considered. The survey aimed to capture R&D infrastructure, spendings and approaches; product, process, organization, service innovations made; industrial and academic cooperation networks; innovation investments; applications of intellectual property rights; effects of innovations for the firms; usage, investment and strategy of IT in the firm level. Open ended questions were added to learn about the considered drivers of barriers of innovation as well as the opinions of industry professionals for both the present and the future of the industry. Further, case studies for two companies are added to the research in order to support the findings of the survey. Findings of the research show that many common metrics can be used to measure innovativeness of construction with sector specific addition and improvements. Valuable data on innovation approaches in construction industry are captured. Research shows that a few percentage of firms has a R&D department but firms do conduct R&D activities aside from the presence of an R&D department. Hierarchical organisation structures effect innovativeness negatively which shows the importance of the management structure as the firm gets larger. Other barriers displayed show the importance and need for improving awareness in the sector. Findings show the importance of the diffusion of innovations and the institutionalization for it. Percentage of firms that have a written strategic plan is quite noteworthy. Cooperation with other firm and organisations and the importance attached on knowledge sources are improving where on the contrary the connection between the industry and universities seem to weaken. Comparative analysis of the answers of the firms in the top international contractors list and the ones that are not showed some significant differentiations in between. Increased sensitivity of the firms that are not in the list against (i) financial insufficiency, (ii) cost of innovations, (iii) lack of qualified human resources, (iv) insufficient market information, (v)difficulties in buying out a partner (vi) economic uncertainty shows the difference of market shift between the parties. Listed firms invest on IT more, but the others show more importance on IT. Case studies show R&D strategies are shaped by the market the firms operate and the Turkish contracting firms are significantly small in size compared to the ones in the front rankings of the top international contractors. Organisational structure and corporate culture are important drivers for the development of innovations. Moreover, analysis of the top international contractors list being prepared by a third party establishment showed the insufficiency of assessing Turkish contracting industry by only the number of firms in the list. Country and company data should be analysed respectively. Further research should be done on (i)customer focused innovation metrics, (ii)relation between process and organisational innovation (iii)design and consultancy services that are left outside the definition of construction sector as an economic activity area.