Reassessing productivity in the construction sector to reflect hidden innovation and the knowledge economy

Les Ruddock and Steven Ruddock

Construction Management and Economics, 2009, vol. 27, issue 9, 871-879

Abstract: With the development of a knowledge economy, it is reasonable to assume that the level of innovation should be particularly high and that it should have a major effect on investment and productivity across all sectors, including the construction industry. For a valid assessment of the economic performance of the construction sector in terms of its productivity, it is important that the economic benefits for the sector from technological change are properly recognized but the impact of such benefits may be 'hidden' due to measurement issues, as innovative activity and investment in intangible assets have both gone unrecognized in official statistics. Much of the innovation in the construction sector is hidden from conventional measures and, for the UK economy, there is evidence that investment in intangibles may be even greater than tangible investment, if a definition of intangible assets incorporating spending on a broad range of knowledge-based assets including organizational capital, human capital, etc. is taken. While accurate data are difficult to determine, an appraisal of the potential for utilizing existing data sources and for improved measurement is presented.

Keywords: Economic performance; innovation; intangible investment; knowledge economy; productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190903131166 (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:27:y:2009:i:9:p:871-879

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

DOI: 10.1080/01446190903131166

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 ().