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Unlike manufacturing and research and developments, major infrastructure projects rarely emphasize or drive their objectives on the basis of innovation. This is in part because of a risk-averse culture, yet conceivably great benefits and opportunities are being lost because of this behavior.

The case for focusing on innovation in infrastructure projects is that the reasons driving innovation are not fully understood, and this impedes the effective implementation of lessons learned for the numerous innovative projects into practice more generally. The purpose of this study was to discover how innovation is produced and captured in major infrastructure projects in Australia and to understand how innovation may be replicated for future projects through refinement of design, project management, finance and procurement.

Engineering and project managers may find this paper helpful to better understand how innovation might happen in infrastructure projects and what different forms it can take.

The findings of this study demonstrate that people and culture drive consistent successful infrastructure outcomes more than simply the development of new products or processes.

According to relational contract theory, relational governance has potential to improve public-private partnership (PPP) infrastructure project sustainability. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the association between relational governance and the sustainability of PPP infrastructure projects. Further, this study examines the mediating effect of managerial innovation and the moderating role of public involvement.

Research data were collected from 158 valid questionnaires completed by Chinese PPP professionals. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was then employed to test five hypotheses.

Results indicate a positive correlation between relational governance and PPP infrastructure project sustainability. This linkage is regulated by public involvement. In addition, managerial innovation plays a mediating role between relational governance and the sustainability of PPP infrastructure projects.

This study verifies the relationship between relational governance and PPP infrastructure project sustainability, as well as intermediary and regulatory factors, providing a new approach to achieving sustainability in PPP infrastructure projects.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has the potential to address and reduce income inequality. However, since 1980, income inequality in the United States has caused concerns for researchers, policymakers and the public. Entrepreneurs and managers can take advantage of information technologies, while those in the middle and the bottom see fewer benefits. Meanwhile, countries such as Iceland are more capable of using ICT infrastructure to reduce income inequality, which contributes to the well-being of its citizens. This research study explores the relationship between infrastructure diffusion and income inequality through Rogers’s diffusion of innovations theory.

To answer the research questions, the author assessed the data through a series of regression analyses using SPSS. The authors used Power BI software to chart the relationships between ICT infrastructure diffusion and income inequality by country and in the United States by state and region.

The results show diffusion of innovations theory’s tenets do not necessarily hold, because a significant negative relationship exists between infrastructure diffusion and income inequality, especially in countries with emerging economies. In the United States, this relationship significantly differs by region.

This research contributes to research by expanding economic and sociology work to the IS domain, while providing conflicting evidence for diffusion of innovations theory. The research also provides suggestions for practice, such as more focused ICT infrastructure investments and regulations.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model that tests the relationship between information technology (IT) infrastructure, customer focus, and business advantages.

Customer focus is categorized into: customer responsiveness and product/service innovation. The data for the study are obtained from 116 executives from a number of business organizations.

IT infrastructure is found to have a significant effect on customer responsiveness, but does not show any significant relationship with product/service innovation. IT infrastructure, customer responsiveness, and product/service innovation are found to be significantly related business advantages.

The research is useful for academic scholars and managers as the results of the study show the value of firm‐specific resources such as IT infrastructure in business advantages. The research is also useful as it finds support for the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm.

The paper exemplifies how IT infrastructure can influence customer focus and thus affects directly and indirectly business advantages.

Previous studies equated information technology (IT) with the notion of effective resources. ITs improved firms’ competitive advantage and innovativeness. Yet, far fewer studies investigated types of IT competencies that corresponded to innovation capabilities, particularly in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to provide an investigation concerning the types of IT competencies and examine their influence on the innovation capabilities across high-tech firms.

A survey was randomly distributed to 274 respondents across four main sectors of Malaysian high-tech firms. The main sectors were electric and electronic, aerospace, computers and office machinery and pharmaceuticals. A structural equation model, Amos, was used to analyse data.

Three findings were surmised. First, IT competencies driven by IT infrastructure, alignment, management affected high-tech firms’ innovation capabilities. Second, absorptive capacity (AC) partially determined the relationship between IT infrastructure and IT alignment and innovation capabilities. AC also determined the relationship between IT management and innovation capabilities. The significance of IT competencies in the improvement of innovation capabilities was presented as a key predictor in bolstering high-tech manufacturing firms’ competitive advantage.

Two points on novelty were presented. First, by conceptualising IT competencies from resource-based theory (RBV), a shift in understanding RBV was presented. Second, alternative key predictors concerning how IT competencies could improve aspects of AC and innovation capabilities were presented.

In a world of progressively more difficult business conditions, the capacity to innovate remains one of the most important attributes of all organizations. It's not, however, particularly easy to do. The quest for innovation is supported through a focus on learning, and particularly when learning is applied to increasing the productivity of knowledge tasks. To support this process, there are elements of infrastructure that are particularly important to develop, which include adoption of effective innovation methodology, as well as robust collaboration, attention to eliminating obstacles and enhancing the enablers of innovation, and providing effective work environments.

Consistent with the dynamic capabilities view tenets, this paper aims to conceptualize a theoretical framework of service innovation in the hotel industry.

This study uses a qualitative method with a content analysis approach. The data were collected using a snowball sampling method and semi-structured interviews with 14 experts in Tehran's hotel industry.

The findings demonstrate that the most significant factors are using the new technology, keeping up with it, training human labor, being up-to-date and adopting new infrastructures. Results also reveal that improper management and lack of knowledge are the most critical factors behind service innovation failure in the hotel industry. Regarding the infrastructures needed to develop service innovation in the hotel industry, the results show that adopting the newest technology in diverse aspects, human infrastructure, the capital and appropriate space and place are the key factors.

This paper contributes to the literature by linking the service innovation perspective to the dynamic capabilities view. It explains how hotels can enhance service innovation to gain a competitive advantage. Therefore, both academicians and hoteliers can develop action plans by selecting and managing the service innovation process.

Due to the growing demand for civil infrastructure, financial innovations are required to close the financing gap. However, a lack of theories has inhibited a complete understanding and, thus, creation and diffusion of financial innovation. A lack of theory about financial innovations in infrastructure is mainly due to the absence of a framework to conceptualize these innovations. A typology that enables comparison of financial systems and, hence, provide a framework to conceptualize financial innovations is missing in the existing literature. This paper defines innovation in the context of financing, funding and delivery of infrastructure projects and proposes a new typology for conceptualization of the loci and types of financial innovations in infrastructure. The loci of innovations are in risk mitigation, regulation, cash flow, contract, organizational, and capital sub-systems. Types of innovations are classified as either integrated or modular and either sustaining or disruptive. The typology was tested by mapping seven innovations created by the U. S. Federal Highway Administration and diffused into 232 transportation projects between 1994 and 2002. Qualitative comparative analysis was then used to evaluate the diffusion trends of financial innovations in the case studies and to demonstrate the capability of the proposed typology for facilitating theory building in the area of infrastructure financial innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to continue the discussion about the actual and potential role of clients in driving more innovation in the construction sector through interviews with some of the Australian construction industry’s leading clients, contractors and consultants.

This paper synthesises previously disconnected literature reports interviews with 46 of Australia’s leading clients, contractors and consultants.

The findings confirm the importance of client leadership, yet also shows that lowest price remains the dominant selection criterion in tenders. Many clients lack the insight and tools to play a leadership role and are unwilling and unable to employ strategies to foster better performance and more innovation because of internal governance constraints, a poor understanding of how built assets contribute to core business objectives and a narrow understanding of their central role in driving innovation. The authors conclude that in reality, the potential for investment in innovation is restricted to the relatively few large companies who are lucky enough to deal with sophisticated clients which procure buildings on a frequent basis. The vast majority of the industry are left to work with clients who procure buildings very rarely, who want the lowest possible price for their investment and who do not see them as a key long-term asset in the success of their core business.

The research is based on 46 interviews. It represents and external perspective on client leadership. Further research is needed with clients to validate the results and provide a counterpoint.

The practical implications of this research are that clients need to be more wary of equating low price with good value. While the merits of competition are widely lauded, the research shows that clients can extract more value from the construction industry by an integrated project strategy that does not lock-in solutions too early, that provides scope and time for innovation to happen, which encourages collaboration, early involvement and which distributes risk and opportunity fairly and openly. According to the research, many clients are unwilling and unable to do this because of internal governance constraints, a lack of tools to value innovation in bids, a poor understanding of how built assets contribute to core business objectives and a narrow understanding of their central role in driving innovation.

Given the planned infrastructure programme in Australia and many other countries, the potential productivity and efficiency benefits to be derived from this research are significant. These saved resources would then be available for further investments in social and economic infrastructure.

This paper’s originality lied in the synthesis of previously disconnected literature on construction innovation, efficiency and productivity.

The prevailing view in the studies on Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) is that PPPs can improve the quality and efficiency of infrastructure services and facilitates innovation in infrastructure developments. Although researchers highlight the potentiality of PPP models for stimulating innovation, they do not prove whether and in which conditions the PPP model is capable of developing innovative solutions. This paper aims to provide answers to the following key research questions: Which are the PPP features that favor innovation? How properly structure a PPP to foster innovation?

With this aim, drawing upon the main streams of studies on innovation, the authors develop a conceptual framework that identifies the PPP features that can influence the innovativeness. Second, they define how these PPP features have to be structured to foster innovation.

The authors find that a wider involvement of the private sector will increase the level of innovation. The industry structure exerts opposite forces on innovation: the dominance of large-sized firms is positively related to innovative output, whereas the market concentration negatively affects innovation. Performance-based contracts should be used in the context of PPP instead of traditional contracts. Finally, the authors find that, to fully exploit the networking effects on innovation, cooperation and trusting among partners involved in PPPs should be enhanced.

The developed framework identifies the relations existing between each PPP feature and the level of innovation and allows to define how these PPP features have to be structured to foster innovation. The authors contribute to fill the gap in the academic literature on PPP and innovation by proving whether and in which conditions the PPP model is capable of developing innovative solutions. Furthermore, they provide meaningful guidelines to those called to structure the PPP arrangements.