Paul Dewick

Building Competitive Advantage: innovation and corporate governance in European construction

This paper explores the relationship between corporate governance and innovation. This is examined through detailed interviews with the largest contractors in five European countries. The ability to undertake research and development in production technologies by contractors differs widely across different countries. This may be explained by the extent to which strategic control is in the hands of those who have the incentives and abilities to allocate resources to uncertain and irreversible investments in innovation. This is influenced by particular features of firm ownership, organisational and management structure, internal mechanisms to diffuse knowledge and links to external sources of knowledge.

Technological Change, Industry Structure and the Environment

Abstract This paper contributes towards the construction and application of a method to assess the long-term impact of the development of pervasive technologies on the environment. It seeks to integrate insights from studies of technology regarding long-term growth with questions of sustainability. Using a methodology based on long-wave theory and a sector classification based on technological characteristics, the likely effects of the three pervasive technologies (information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology) on the input-output structure of selected sectors and on the levels of emissions of industrial greenhouse gases are considered.

Sustainable technologies and the innovation–regulation paradox

Abstract This article examines the paradox between innovation and regulation and its implication for the adoption of sustainable technologies in the domestic sector of the construction industry. The case of UK is examined, where progress towards the inclusion of social and environmental considerations has been slow. Recent change in attitude in the private sector, combined with government initiatives, has prompted a more sustainable agenda in construction. With significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions required to meet climate change targets, the case for a particular energy-saving technology—natural thermal insulation materials for cavity wall insulation—suitable for widespread use in residential buildings, is assessed. In addition to the inherent conservatism in the construction industry, additional barriers inhibiting the uptake of new sustainable thermal insulation technologies include capital costs, the failure of the market to account for social and environmental costs and savings and their perceived cost-effectiveness and performance over a 50-year lifetime. Policy implications are drawn from the analysis.

Networks and innovation in European construction: benefits from inter-organisational cooperation in a fragmented industry

This paper explores the relationship between inter-organisational networks and innovation in the construction industry. This is analysed through detailed interviews with the largest contractors, and a number of professional institutions, representatives of government, quasi-government bodies, research institutes, architects and clients in five European countries. The performance of the construction industry differs widely across different countries. Our research findings suggest that the strength of inter-organisational cooperation may be responsible for enhanced performance of the construction industry in some of the countries. This includes, in particular, the relationship of contractors with subcontractors or suppliers of materials, the government, universities, architects or engineers, clients and international collaborations with other contractors.

Innovation in construction: A European analysis

Introduction Part I: Systems of Innovation and the European Construction Industry 1. Corporate Governance and Innovation in Construction in Five European Countries 2. Networks and Innovation in Construction in Five European Countries Part II: Adoption and Diffusion of Sustainable Technologies in Construction 3. Sustainable Technologies and the Innovation-Regulation Paradox: The Case of Natural Thermal Insulation 4. Factors Enabling and Inhibiting Sustainable Technologies in Construction: The Case of Active Solar Heating Systems 5. Networks and Sustainable Technologies: The Case of Scottish Social Housing Conclusion Appendix References Index

Converging technologies at the nanoscale: The making of a new world?

The design of artefacts commonly involves the convergence of many technologies and this remains true for artefacts being created at the nanoscale. However, since 2000 the phrase ‘converging technologies’ has acquired a special interpretation related to the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (acronym NBIC) for the improvement of ‘human performance’, raising the visibility of what has colloquially been called ‘nanotechnology’. Exaggerated forecasts soon followed for the value of innovatory markets for nano-artefacts or artefacts highly dependent on the various emergent nanoscale technologies. Many of these activities have resulted from a creative collision between chemistry and biology, and engineering and physics, especially where the latter have been related to micromechanical devices and electronics. The outcome has been rising expectations that the field, now designated as converging technologies, may be the beginnings of a ‘new world’ within a notional time horizon of 2030. The paper considers the possibility, feasibility and desirability of nanoscale artefacts (nano-artefacts) in contributing to a ‘new world’. By distinguishing between nano-artefacts and nanotechnology, some of the more unrealistic expectations surrounding the possibilities can be discouraged, facilitating investment decisions by business and informed debate by stakeholders regarding the future development and diffusion of nano-artefacts. The paper concludes that nano-artefacts are likely to have pervasive, radical effects by 2030, particularly in the fields that underpin life on the planet, including energy and food and the possibility of improving human performance. However, the effects are unlikely to be on the scale seen in the industrial revolution.

New lessons for technology policy and climate change: investment for innovation

The direction of UK energy policy requires a renewed impetus if the goal of climate change stabilization is to be met. Cost is not the main issue: a transformation to a low-carbon energy system may be no more expensive than meeting future energy demands with fossil fuels. Institutional barriers are preventing the large-scale adoption of the necessary technologies. New institutions to promote low-carbon technologies have not yet led to investment on the necessary scale. Further changes to the operation of the UK electricity markets to create a ‘level playing field’ for small-scale and intermittent generation are necessary. UK policy can contribute to international agreements following on from the Kyoto Accord, which also need to address the institutional barriers to energy technology development and transfer.

Factors Enabling and Inhibiting Sustainable Technologies in Construction: the case of active solar heating systems

The domestic building sector across Europe accounts for around 40% of total energy consumption. Mitigation strategies for greenhouse gas emissions have focused on improving the energy efficiency of buildings, both in terms of electricity use and space heating. In addition to improving the thermal properties of the building envelope and developing mechanisms to encourage energy conservation, the use of new energy technologies in new build and retro-fit residential buildings has the capacity to reduce significantly energy consumption. Active solar heating (ASH) systems are one such technology, suitable for widespread use across new and existing buildings in the housing stock, which have the potential to make a significant contribution to sustainable building and regeneration. Their generally slow adoption can be attributed to high capital cost and unknown cost effectiveness, but these factors do not adequately explain considerable differences between European countries in the take-up of new sustainable technologies in construction. This suggests that there are sets of more important factors and institutions inhibiting or facilitating their adoption. This paper examines the structural and institutional factors behind these differentials and draws implications for the management of innovation by construction firms and government policy for those countries under-exploiting the potential of ASH systems. Regulation, legislation and fiscal and financial incentives can encourage innovation and can help to promote solar technology. For countries such as the UK and France, lessons can be learned from the fixed price schemes, direct capital grant support, tax incentives and other such initiatives employed in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. However, manufacturers and suppliers of ASH systems cannot be considered independently of other firms along the building chain. By raising the visibility of the adoption of this sustainable technology, construction firms can benefit their organisations from the reputation for installing this innovation, while confining the risk to this particular technology. Government can also play a role in increasing the capacity of construction firms to identify appropriate sustainable technologies and evaluate their potential costs and benefits.

Limits to the Implementation of Benchmarking Through KPIs in UK Construction Policy: Insights from game theory

Abstract Benchmarking through the use of key performance indicators (KPIs) has been an important part of the UK governments market-oriented reforms to improve efficiency across the public sector and in other areas such as construction where government is a major client. However, government attempts to implement construction KPIs have not followed the expected course. We argue that insights from game theory show that the initial plan for construction benchmarking failed to take account of the strategic value of the information collected and was not implementable because the sharing of information by construction suppliers with their clients was a dominated strategy.

Nano-worlds as Schumpeterian emergence and Polanyian double-movements

Abstract The overarching question raised in this special issue is whether societies can, do or indeed should steer new and emergent science and technological development and its management on to trajectories construed as more or less ‘desirable’. It therefore sits at the interface of two arenas. These are governance: processes of shaping/steering emergent technologies and markets; and sustainability: normative agendas incorporating a range of potentially competing conjectures and internally inconsistent desires such as to facilitate rather than stifle innovation, to enable economic development, to anticipate or deploy strategies to cope with risk and uncertainty, and to encourage technological developments that benefit rather than harm humans, their quality of life and the natural environment. Despite the potential for apparent empirical inconsistencies and contradictions that manifest as outcomes of the negotiation of these aims, there is (pace Karl Polanyi) a normative entry point to all of the articles and the material they draw upon, which is the idea that markets and technologies should be the handmaiden of societies, not vice versa. It is now widely recognized that ‘nanotechnology’ is a diverse set of feasible procedures emerging from scientific possibilities to enable the production of artefacts at the nanoscale creating new products, processes and services. Attention has to be paid to the desirability of these artefacts, which involve social, economic, ecologic, political and ethical matters that surround their emergence. The purpose of this special issue is to set out the current and future prospects for the widespread use (or innovation) of technological convergence at the nanoscale to create nano-artefacts, and the needs for governance and regulation that will accompany these innovations.