School of Business, Engineering and Science

The construction industry has of recent been blamed for lack of innovation. Lack of innovation in the industry is believed to be responsible for the decreasing or stagnant levels of productivity in comparison with other industries. This paper reviews the major barriers and en ablers to innovation in general. Propositions were made about the factors that affect innovation in the

Implementation and control of planning and scheduling of construction project require high level of coordination by all parties involved. Therefore, the management role and operational behavior of each party should be properly addressed. Literature review showed that little research was directed towards identifying and assessing efficiency of such management roles and organizational behaviors. This paper focuses on the analysis and discussion of responses to an openended questions survey that examined the practitioners' opinions towards the management roles and operational behaviors. The results revealed common factors regarded as important management roles in promoting the current practice in planning and scheduling. These included: (a) efficient forecast of resources for non-aggressive schedules; (b) effective conformance-measures of schedule quality control; (c) well-defined prioritizing system for resource assignment in scheduling; (d) proficient participation of clients in setting-out the planning roles, needs and constraints; (e) proactive assessment of human and nonhuman aspects on scheduling performance; (f) fostering new technology or visualization tools for supporting scheduling control; and (g) usefulness of feedback and communicating systems in scheduling. The study provides a new insight towards evaluating the significant project management roles and behaviors for the best likelihoods of enhancing the implementation of planning and scheduling in a more efficient and dynamic way.

Trends and Theory (P3T3) is a research network, including over 70 researchers from 28 countries, funded by the EU COST Programme with the aim of developing a theoretical basis for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the transport sector and making the shift from a descriptive approach to a normative one. More specifically, the objective is to develop theoretical models and tools needed to support the implementation of PPPs in the transport sector that take into account the different scenarios in which projects are implemented, in terms of macroeconomic context, political and institutional environment, entrepreneurial and innovation systems and transport modes. Research work within the network is conducted through the establishment of working groups, where research is accelerated by combining existing findings and setting common research agendas. Developments are presented and discussed in working group meetings. This knowledge is further disseminated to the academic community and professionals through conferences, workshops and journal publications. The 2011 P3T3 Discussion Papers are a selection of papers developed, presented and discussed in 2011 by the P3T3 network. The emphasis, during the first year of operation, has been on developing a common basis and balancing the various research interests and backgrounds. As such, most papers included in this publication concern or are a product of literature review or provide overviews of specific topics in order to become the basis of future research. The starting point, however, are the differentiating qualities of transport infrastructure that set it apart from other sectors of the economy. One basic characteristic of transport infrastructure is that its availability is of essential importance to most other sectors of society and the economy. Once provided, much infrastructure-especially roadsbecomes a "public good" to be "consumed" to capacity by users without influencing its availability for others. Most transport infrastructure bears characteristics of a "natural monopoly" as the costs of provision are minimized when there is only one facility and "ownership rights" and their regulation is imperative. The scale of infrastructure undertakings and their technical specificities typically leads to the inherent difficulty of establishing a fully competitive market. Finally, transportation results in significant externalities, which currently in most cases are not fully accounted for in the pricing system. These qualities make it impossible for the public sector to divest itself of the responsibility to provide transport infrastructure and services. Faced with the challenge of maintaining surface transport infrastructure networks and adding new capacity in strategic areas most governments increasingly relied on infrastructure financing schemes, which involve the private sector. This tendency has also been stimulated by the EU deregulation policy. The large sunk investments required were balanced out by the economic value of accessibility, which allowed for private sector interest. After their (re) introduction in the '90s, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) grew steadily as the preferred financing scheme. Herewith, Dewulf et al. present an overview

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to study knowledge integration (KI) when diffusing a systemic innovation. The objectives are to understand what mechanisms are used and when and what their effects are in terms of knowledge development. Design/methodology/approach-The method comprised a longitudinal case study which followed a firm's attempts to develop and diffuse a timber multi-storey building system (the systemic innovation) over a number of projects. Findings-The findings emphasize actual projects as the most crucial activity for KI and when and why soft personalization mechanisms and codified knowledge should be mixed. Furthermore, it shows how different types of knowledge are built-up including construction process effects over a series of projects. Research limitations/implications-The research contributes with knowledge about mechanisms for the diffusion of a specific systemic innovation type and provides input regarding mechanisms to use. The introduction of the concepts "domain-specific," "procedural" and "general knowledge" into construction has increased understanding of innovation diffusion and knowledge flows and where and how they are integrated. Practical implications-The research shows how knowledge develops and through which mechanisms, and where problems occur. Construction organizations can learn from this to avoid mistakes and potentially better understand how to manage knowledge to diffuse a systemic innovation. Originality/value-The research provides insight into systemic innovation diffusion over a series of projects and focuses on both projects and the construction process.

Sweden’s agriculture industry has faced many challenges in recent years. Among the most severe challenges are the decrease in the number of small and medium-sized farms, the decrease in the number of people employed in agricultural activities, and the increase in governmental regulations and legislation governing such activities. At the same time, the demand that agriculture contributes to sustainable social and ecological development has increased. Although research shows that sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) contributes to the creation of sustainable businesses and to the development of a sustainable society, Swedish agriculture has not been at the forefront in the use of SBMI. The purpose of this paper is to examine the barriers to SBMI in Swedish agriculture in order to understand why farmers seldom engage in SBMI. This qualitative study follows the Gioia methodology and data for the analysis were acquired in semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs at six famil...

The importance of business model innovation (BMI) is widely recognized. BMI is especially important in the agri-food industry that faces enormous challenges as the demand for food increases worldwide. Much of the BMI research focuses on the technology and biomedical industries. Far less attention has been paid to the agri-food industry. This article is a systematic literature review of the BMI research in the agri-food industry. The article's aim is to identify and categorize various barriers to BMI as described in the literature (in English) published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2014. The findings show a fairly even distribution among external and internal BMI barriers. Because the main barrier is the mind-set that is resistant to change, it is recommended the researchers and practitioners should focus more on the cognitive barriers to BMI in the agri-food industry.

Hörte, Sven-åke, 1946-(author) Luleå tekniska universitet,Institutionen för industriell ekonomi och samhällsvetenskap (IES) Barth, Henrik, (author) Högskolan i Halmstad SE Chibba, Aron, (author) Luleå tekniska universitet,Institutionen för industriell ekonomi och ...

This paper focuses on the situation when a firm moves from being an entrepreneuri ally managed firm to a professionally managed firm. A small firm may have a very simple structure, but when the number of employees grow, so will the need to differentiate and specialise the way work is done. During that transformation, when the organisation and the management principals are changed, leading to a temporary slack of control of the firm, a decrease of economic performance is hypothesised.

At least two different administrative mechanisms are available for the small business manager to develop and pursue a competitive strategy. One refers to managerial skills needed to implement and follow the competitive strategy chosen by the firm. The other refers to the design of organisation structure i.e. how job tasks are divided, grouped and coordinated. This paper argues that the fit between the competitive strategy followed by a firm and the utilisation of the administrative mechanisms is associated with superior performance of the firm.

Immigrant entrepreneurs face many challenges in the various early phases of their companies’ existence. These challenges are often referred to as “the liability of newness”. While some of these challenges are common to all entrepreneurs, the immigrant entrepreneur has an additional set of challenges. This article describes those challenges in the immigrant entrepreneurial experience in the Swedish agri-food industry. A qualitative research design is used. Interviews were conducted with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs who planned a business, had started a business, or had exited a business. Various websites and tax reports provided secondary data. The research, which covered a two-year time frame, identifies the strategies and actions the immigrant entrepreneurs adopted and used to try to overcome those challenges. The following strategies and actions were identified: use of business support, virtual embeddedness, family and ethnic groups, entrepreneurial experience, and niche markets. Th...

Immigrant entrepreneurs face many challenges in the various early phases of their companies’ existence. These challenges are often referred to as “the liability of newness”. While some of these challenges are common to all entrepreneurs, the immigrant entrepreneur has an additional set of challenges. This article describes those challenges in the immigrant entrepreneurial experience in the Swedish agri-food industry. A qualitative research design is used. Interviews were conducted with 25 immigrant entrepreneurs who planned a business, had started a business, or had exited a business. Various websites and tax reports provided secondary data. The research, which covered a two-year time frame, identifies the strategies and actions the immigrant entrepreneurs adopted and used to try to overcome those challenges. The following strategies and actions were identified: use of business support, virtual embeddedness, family and ethnic groups, entrepreneurial experience, and niche markets. Th...

This paper aims to increase our understanding of sustainable business model innovation in the agri-food sector in terms of its theoretical and practical approaches for sustainability and their degree of complexity and maturity. The paper is based on a systematic literature review of 570 journal articles on business models and business model innovation published between 1990 and 2014. Of these articles, only 21 have business model innovation as their main focus. The review shows that research interest in the agri-food sector has increased in these years. The paper proposes a conceptual framework for sustainable business model innovation in the agri-food sector that can be used to meet the challenges encountered in taking a sustainability perspective.