Cooperation in the building sector between building - material manufacturers and contractors to develop products

• Previous research has indicated that poor cooperation has dominated the relationship between building-material manufacturers and contractors in Europe for more than a century. The purpose of this study, based on earlier research by the authors, analysis of data and reference to other studies, is to ascertain whether the previous indication of poor cooperation still applies and whether this, subsequently, affects the development of new construction products, based on the premise that development demands product ideas in order to know what to develop as well as cooperation in order to facilitate this development. Semi structured interviews with ten Swedish and two Danish building-material manufacturers were carried out to investigate the extent to which they cooperate with contractors to develop new products. None of the twelve building-material manufactures were found to cooperate with contractors, but rather with other manufac-turers. Cooperation in the building industry still seems to be poor. The findings show that there is a need for further studies in this area to explore ways in which cooperation can be improved or increased.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Byggproduktion (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Construction Management (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Building-material manufacturer

contractor

cooperation

diffusion

idea generation

innovation

observation

TECHNOLOGY

TEKNIKVETENSKAP

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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