The adoption of industrialised building systems (IBS) technology, with its focus on off-site prefabrication and modularisation, offers a significant reduction in environmental degradation, while simultaneously achieving significant productivity gains, decreasing labour requirements and improving working conditions. IBS technology is now one of the prevalent and growing building technologies in developed and developing countries. Policy approaches in some countries have thus concentrated on providing tailored support to encourage IBS technology adoption. Despite the obvious benefits of IBS technology, the adoption is very slow. This paper reviews literature aimed at understanding the different influences impacting on IBS adoption. The aim of the paper is to categorise and synthesis factors identified in the literature that explicitly or implicitly impact on IBS adoption decision-making. It specifically focuses on how emerging (a) contextual factors (e.g. economics conditions, technology development, government involvement, sustainability feature and stakeholders participation), (b) structural factors (e.g. Project condition, procurement setup, management approach, communication process and decision-making style) and (c) behavioural factors (e.g. experience, bounded Rationality, awareness and attitude) influence IBS adoption. Hence, identifying influencing factors on the decision to adopt IBS in construction provides support in terms of better understanding and facilitating the increased use of IBS technology and thus, improving levels of sustainability and competitiveness in the construction industries.

Purpose-There has been a significant increase in the use of relationship contracting in the global construction industry, with strategies such as Partnering, Alliancing and Public-Private Partnerships all used. These approaches were introduced to the Australian construction industry in the 1990s in an attempt to overcome the adversarial nature of traditional contracting methods. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence the successful implementation of Project Alliancing by means of a case study approach focusing on the procurement of a large water treatment plant. The research findings identify critical success factors (CSFs) both from literature and the case study project

Innovation is key for productivity improvement and advancements in different sectors of the economy, including the construction sector. The criticism of the slow pace of innovation in construction industry may be unwarranted, considering the structure of the industry and nature of the construction business. The loosely coupled nature of firms, mostly Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s), delivering ‘projects’ through partial engagement, together with the distinction between the project innovation and firm innovation makes it difficult to extract innovations in a meaningful way. The problem also lies in conceptualising, defining, articulating and assessing innovation in construction. The literature is replete with research into construction innovation, however, there is limited research into understanding how innovation is perceived and narrated in practice. The paper aims to explore how innovation is assessed and narrated in construction, specifically analysing theory and practice perspectives. A theoretical model was constructed from a structured literature review illustrating existing discourse and narratives of construction innovation assessment. A qualitative analysis of ‘Professional Excellence in Building’ submission documents to the Australian Institute of Building was performed to identify the practice perspective of innovation. The findings suggest that internal organizational and process innovation account for the majority of improvements identified. Importantly a taxonomy of narrative is developed that articulates how the construction industry in Australia views industry innovation.

Research suggests that the cultural context in which a business operates influences the level of innovation. However, research on the links between cultural factors and innovation in construction remains limited. The aim is to examine the underlying relationships between cultural factors and innovation propensity in small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the construction sector. Innovation propensity is the degree to which an organization is inclined to achieve a state of innovativeness by design. In contrast, cultural factors manifest through the beliefs and values related to the various organizational aspects. The theoretical model and, subsequently, the survey instrument were developed from a review of the literature. The model was tested using survey data from SMEs in a regional area of Australia. The partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was employed to test the model. The results suggest that cultural factors account for 41% of the variance in innovation propensity. Specifically, market orientation focused on dealing with competitors had the strongest influence on innovation propensity. Other factors include business relationships based on trust and workforce capacity acquired through regular technology development for solving problems. However, the role of leadership, especially concerning championing projects, does not have a statistically significant impact on innovation propensity. A large proportion of construction SMEs, specifically in regional areas, will have a relatively small number of employees (up to four) and a flat organizational structure that reflects a short-term business orientation. In this context, the cultural notion of leadership does not have a significant direct relationship on innovation propensity. Therefore, policies encouraging market orientation, building relationship networks, and expanding workforce capabilities might be more effective in improving innovation propensity in construction SMEs than policies directly and solely focused on developing leadership skills.