Innovation in small construction knowledge-intensive professional service firms: a case study of an architectural practice

Shu-Ling Lu and Martin Sexton

Construction Management and Economics, 2006, vol. 24, issue 12, 1269-1282

Abstract: Small construction knowledge-intensive professional service firms (SCKIPSFs) are becoming increasingly important agents of innovation within the construction industry. The nature and process of innovation in SCKIPSFs, however, is generally considered through the constraining prism of research results generated from significantly different contexts, such as from manufacturing sectors or non-project based firms. A theory of innovation for SCKIPSFs is developed from a longitudinal 22-month case study of a small architectural practice. Two forms of knowledge-based innovation were discerned from the empirical work: exploitative innovation and explorative innovation. 'Explorative innovation' was found to be located in immediate 'new' project domains, and entailed search, variation, experimentation, activity to solve project-specific problems; while 'exploitative innovation' concentrated on developing generic organisational infrastructure to 'refine' and 'improve the efficiency' of the firm operations to nurture capability for future activity. The key challenge for SCKIPSFs is to develop and manage an appropriate balance between explorative and exploitative innovation over time in order to generate sustainable competitive advantage.

Keywords: Knowledge-intensive; professional service firms; innovation; small enterprises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190600879109 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:24:y:2006:i:12:p:1269-1282

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446190600879109

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().