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Technology transfer in the construction industry
Luleå University of Technology, Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering, Industrilized and sustainable construction.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5725-906x
Smart Energy and Built Environment, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, 02044, Espoo, Finland.
2021 (English)In: Journal of Technology Transfer, ISSN 0892-9912, E-ISSN 1573-7047, Vol. 46, no 5, p. 1291-1320Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The demand for affordable, high-quality homes and premises has increased as society has evolved. Construction companies have shown that an industrialised housebuilding (IHB) platform strategy is an effective way of meeting exacting customer requirements. We decided to apply a managerial perspective and consider the IHB platform as a technological solution when investigating technology transfer (TT) in a construction context. Drawing on a meta-analysis of the literature and a qualitative case study at an IHB company, this work examines how two construction companies participate in TT. The results show that the IHB platform strategy can help a company overcome uncertainties associated with the TT process. Furthermore, the platform strategy supports the transferability of IHB to different markets, which, in turn, provides unique opportunities for companies from other contexts to enter the construction market. Our findings also revealed that CEOs from three construction companies were not only interested in TT due to potential profit improvements, but also considered how the process could benefit their employees and the community. This may be a result that is specific to Nordic culture or insight into a unique characteristic of the broad construction industry. This study contributes knowledge to the scarce research field of TT in a construction context. It provides evidence for how further cases of TT may disrupt the construction industry in terms of new business models or companies from the diverse field entering the market.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2021. Vol. 46, no 5, p. 1291-1320
Keywords [en]
Technology transfer, Industrialised house building, Construction industry
National Category
Construction Management
Research subject
Construction Management and Building Technology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-80297DOI: 10.1007/s10961-020-09820-7ISI: 000554440100001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85088873814OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ltu-80297DiVA, id: diva2:1456210
Funder
Academy of Finland
Note

Validerad;2021;Nivå 2;2021-09-30 (alebob);

Funder: Aalto University’s research project “Building 2030—industrialised construction”; The Finnish Science Foundation for Economics and Technology

Available from: 2020-08-03 Created: 2020-08-03 Last updated: 2026-03-12Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Using and Managing Resources in Industrialized House-Building: Characterization of a Swedish Industrialized House-Building Company from a Resource-Based View
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Using and Managing Resources in Industrialized House-Building: Characterization of a Swedish Industrialized House-Building Company from a Resource-Based View
2020 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Global reports stress the importance of developing the construction industry to address productivity related issues and challenges with urbanization. McKinsey conclude that the construction industry could be more efficient by how they manage and employ resources to address the low productivity. With an expected intensified urbanization and rapidly changing global economic landscape, pressure is put on the current housing production pace. Therefore, industrialization has been promoted to make industries sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of innovation focusing on industrial processes. Technology companies has started to take an interest in the construction market as they see a potential in industrialization and scalability of the house-building and have made heavy investments in construction companies using prefabricated or modular manufacturing technics to build houses.

Although industrialized house-building companies have been the subjects of wide-range of research, research into how to utilize industrialized house-building can be important and interesting not only to confront the low productivity but also increased resource-use efficiency and give an explanation how to benefit from the global interest into investing in industrialized house-building. Therefore, an increased understanding of industrialized house-building from a resource-based perspective, exemplified from a Swedish perspective, is considered to be of importance for further development the building industry.

The contribution of this thesis is a synthesis of four different constructs (entrepreneurial orientation, dynamic capability, path dependency and technology transfer) discussed in three academic papers to characterize and build a further understanding of how an IHB company employ and manage their resources.

Findings shows that on a corporate level, the industrialized house-building company managed resources in many different ways and they did so to secure their business and they showed different approaches towards how they employed resources. From a theoretical perspective, entrepreneurial orientation has a more proactive, long-term, and strategical focus on employing resources (both tangible and intangible) looking more at the bigger picture. Dynamic capability has a more reactive (addresses different aspects of change as it happens) and tactical focus on employing resources looking more at the small steps of sensing and seizing and reconfiguring of resources. Technology transfer can be expressed as an active process (two-way communication) on an operational level on how to employ resources between parties.

Entrepreneurial orientation enabled the case company to continuously exploit and renew resources and competences but also to sense, seize, and reconfigure cumulative assets over time, which displayed as exponential build-up of dynamic capabilities. How the company worked with developing corporate assets showed that continuous development of dynamic capabilities also influenced the industry path dependency, by working with decreasing process variation caused by external factors. Later by exponentially develop dynamic capabilities, exploring Lean to renew the corporate culture; the increased standardized work operationalized their accumulated resources. Through small steps of exploitation and exploration and reconfiguration of working methods, the company continuously improved operations; routinized learning and use of built-up assets. The way they worked by constantly sense, seize and reconfigure their operations, address the assumption that companies grow in a path dependent way. This, in turn, has led to the possibility to employ resources through technology transfer of the industrialized house-building platform, into a business.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Luleå: Luleå University of Technology, 2020
Series
Doctoral thesis / Luleå University of Technology, ISSN 1402-1544
Keywords
Entreprenourial orientation, Dynamic capability, Path dependency, Technology transfer, Resource based-view, Industrailized house-building
National Category
Construction Management
Research subject
Construction Management and Building Technology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-80746 (URN)978-91-7790-645-2 (ISBN)978-91-7790-646-9 (ISBN)
Public defence
2020-11-06, E632, Luleå, 10:00 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2020-09-10 Created: 2020-09-10 Last updated: 2026-03-12Bibliographically approved

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