The Netherlands – innovations in the Dutch construction industry

Innovation is generally considered to contribute to the competitive success of fi rms in many different ways (Tidd & Bessant, 2009). Due to the increasingly shorter lifecycle of products and services, fi rms are urged to innovate at a faster pace. Additionally, construction fi rms are faced with the need to innovate in order to succeed in a more competitive market and to respond to the increased societal pressure to meet the demand for sustainable and cleaner industrial production, higher quality output, lower costs and higher added value. Despite its many cross-industry relations, the construction industry is a tradition-based sector and lags behind in innovativeness when compared to, for example, the manufacturing industries. Interactions throughout the construction supply chain are ad hoc, project based, and knowledge is protected due to perceived uncertainties and vulnerability to risks (Egmond & Mohammadi, 2011). This forms a barrier to learning and knowledge exchange of R&D fi ndings and project experiences that is detrimental to innovation (Franco, et al., 2004)