Innovation and sectoral change in construction: the role of the industry paradigm and industry leaders

The construction industry appears to have serious problems to innovate effectively and incorporate innovative knowledge into firms’ businesses, despite the innovation potential and capacities of the industry. In the last decades several initiatives have been taken and many approaches have been proposed to increase the innovation level of the industry. However, these efforts generally have been less prosperous than planned. Existing practices and behavior seem to die hard. Fundamental changes of an industry require a paradigm shift, i.e. a basic change of the collective mindset of the industry that drives individual behavior. The role of leadership and the conduct of managers is seen as a crucial factor here. Their conduct appears to be either a force or a barrier to change. They make the decisions, provide the role model and give the “right example”. Are the leaders in construction industry up to this task? Can the leaders in construction industry shake off the old paradigms? In practice this doesn’t seem to be the case. Instead, old paradigms tend to reinforce. An explorative quantitative study shows that the mainstream qualifications of industry leaders today are similar as in the past. Education is predominantly technology and project focused. Social-organizational and business-economic skills and knowledge seem to be far less present and required, and thus less valued. Particularly these skills and knowledge seem to be crucial to achieve a paradigm shift, and increase innovation levels in the construction industry. This paper concludes that change initiatives could gain in success, when they create wider awareness of existence and persistence of conserving paradigms.