Construction Innovation: Information, Process, Management

Purpose – The complex interactions between firm- and industry-specific factors within a national context and their impacts on innovation often hinder construction enterprises' efforts in optimising their innovation performance. The purpose of this paper is to employ the Cobb-Douglas empirical production model to develop an innovation production function that illustrates the input and output factors relating to the innovation performance of construction firms.

Design/methodology/approach – Applying these factors to a dataset comprising economic and innovation statistics over 20 years for Germany and Singapore, regression analyses were conducted to investigate the critical resources that contribute to the innovation performance of German and Singaporean construction firms.

Findings – The findings indicated that the maturity of the innovation landscape in Germany cultivates the strength of German construction firms in developing unique firm-specific resources that pushes their competitiveness edge. In Singapore, construction firms' dependence on the nation's basic science and technology research leads to weak firm dynamics and innovation capabilities.

Originality/value – It is recommended that in Singapore, the government should focus on the strength of their relationships with construction enterprises to aid the development of construction firms' R&D capabilities. The primary recommendation for both German and Singapore construction firms is to develop a system of knowledge documentation and distribution that facilitates systematically reapplications of know-how, enabling construction firms to develop sustainable competitiveness through unique knowledge assets.