Assessing key dimensions to effective innovation implementation in interorganizational project teams: an Integrated Project Delivery case

Abstract

This research examines the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry’s use of the contractually followed Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) format as an administrative innovation to reduce inefficiencies and fragmentation in ventures involving multiple agents and contractors. A promising integrative theoretical framework, developed by Klein and Sorra [The challenge of innovation implementation. Academy of Management Review, 21, 1055–80], emphasizes two constructs in the successful implementation of innovative organizational processes: climate and value-fit. This paper presents an IPD case study via the lens of Klein and Sorra’s model to: test the model’s fit to interorganizational AEC project teams; bring insights to effective implementation of IPD as an innovation; and expand our understanding of administrative innovations’ implementation. The case study provided a unique opportunity to this research as five months into the project, the owner decided to give up IPD and revert to a more familiar project delivery method (i.e. construction management at risk). Using mixed methods, the researchers report e-mail correspondence, kick-off meeting observations, project team meeting minutes and interview data from the three months between conceptual design and design development phases. Data were analysed qualitatively and via social-network analysis to identify individual behaviours and organizational actions associated with the implementation of IPD. Findings verify the significance of climate and value-fit constructs in IPD implementation as an innovation in AEC project teams. Additional insights show that the manner of interactions among interorganizational team members as well as their interactions with respective home organization constituents ‘make or break’ innovation implementation success. Results provide insights for IPD implementation in AEC project teams and build a theoretical foundation for expanding the discussed model in future research.