Innovation in Construction

By Dr Tim Lees – licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution – Non-Commercial – Share Alike License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/

www.reading.ac.uk

Socio-technical systems

Dr. Tim Lees

Learning outcomes

• What is a socio-technical system?

• An appreciation of the process on innovation.

• An understanding of users in the user process.

Question 1

• What is a socio-technical system?

People

Cultural

Legal

Financial

Political

Science

Technology

Organisations

Process

Why?• There is a growing realisation

that we have the technology.• Technologies are becoming

more economically viable.• Government and public will

appears to be increasing.

.... and yet we see little or no change!

Is the assumption that if a technology is cleaner and cheaper then economics will drive technology uptake always valid?

The ‘conventional package’ of technocratic beliefs (Shove 1998)

• Virtually all current sustainable built environment research focuses on:

1. Establishing the 'Technical potential' for change;

2. Identifying and overcoming 'Non-technical barriers'; and

3. Implementing 'Technology transfer' onto the necessary recipients

Question 2

What is an innovation?

Innovation: The action of innovating; the introduction of novelties; the alteration of what is established by the introduction of new elements or forms (OED 2011).Innovation: An innovation is an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or the unit adopting it. (Rogers, 1995).

Question 3?

What types of innovation are there?

Product versus process?

Radical versus incremental?

Component versus architectural?

Types of Innovations• Product versus process

Things, material, widgets!

Sequences, steps, ways of doing things

• What about services?

Types of Innovations• Radical innovations can redefine markets

making the incumbents’ skills obsolete.• This is competence destroying innovation and

makes it easier for new entrants.• Incremental innovation builds upon

incumbents’ knowledge and strengthens market position.

• This is called competence enhancing innovation.

• Competence enhancing innovation makes it harder for new entrants.

Types of Innovations• Radical versus incremental

Radical

Incremental

Incremental

Incremental

Types of Innovations• Component innovation involves improvement

within a part that makes up a product without changing the way in which the parts are connected.

• Architectural innovation is a reconfiguration of the way in which components relate to each other without changing any of the part themselves.

• In order to become more than a new idea an innovation needs to be adopted.

• Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time amongst the members of a social system.

• Key message: innovation is not an isolated event.... The adoption of new technologies relies upon a complex network of social and technological elements.– A SOCIO-TECHNICAL NETWORK!

Diffusion of Innovation

Models of Diffusion• Rothwell’s five generations (5G) of

innovation diffusion:-• 1G (1950s) Technology push• 2G (1960s-70s) Market pull• 3G (1970s-80s) R&D coupling with

marketing• 4G (1980s-90s) Integrated processes• 5G (1990s-) Systems integration and

networkingIncreased market pull & feedback

Increased complexity

Increased integration and networking

Question 4?

What factors impact on the diffusion of innovations?

• Initially, technologies are used by many marginal users for different purposes

• Technologies succeed if appropriated by a sufficiently powerful user group

• The technology then evolves to fit the needs of that group

(Bijker, Latour, Law, Akrich et al)• Getting the technology into use relies on the

whole supply chain – all of which have to see it as being in their interest.

• Key stakeholders have to ‘buy in’ if the technology is to succeed.

• Developers modify the technology to achieve this ‘buy in’

(Latour)

Diffusion of Innovations

Diffusion of Innovations• People ‘domesticate’ energy consuming

technologies. They develop patterns of useof the technology partially determined by the technology, and partially determined by prior routines and practices.

• Technologies which aren’t domesticatedare rejected.

(Sørensen et al)• There is no clear separation between

invention, innovation and diffusion of technologies.

• “Organisational and institutional innovations are inextricably associated with technical innovations”

(Chris Freeman 1994)

Are there any criteria we can use to understand diffusion?

• Relative advantage – perceived as being better than the previously used technology.

• Compatibility – perceived as consistent with existing capabilities and context.

• Complexity – perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use.

• Trialability – the degree to which a technology may be experimented with and trialled.

• Observability – the extent to which the benefits (and to some extent the technology) are visible to others.

(Rogers, 2003)

Diffusion of Innovations

Question 5?

Who decides how a technology/innovation is used?

Designers, Manufactures, Users, Retailers…..

Technology Use

• Socio-Technical Systems perspectives see social systems, and technological systems, as co-evolutionary.– Social systems change in response to technological

innovation.– Technologies are only effective when they work with

existing social systems.

• Renewable energy and energy efficiency approaches in buildings are part of a socio-technical system - they are not just a technical process.

The ‘instruction’ problem

• Latour’s ‘programmes’ & ‘anti-programmes’– Designers create implicit ‘programmes’ for users to

enact in prescribed ways.– Users create ‘anti-programmes’ (work-arounds) to

subvert these programmes and get systems to do what they want.

• The history of low energy buildings is littered with examples of these.

The ‘instruction’ problem

• Users have many different mental models of how the world works– Users’ actions are based on their mental models – not

the design engineer’s.– STS argues that technologies should be optimised to the

users’ model of reality – it’s the only reality that matters!

• This leads to…• ‘…designing user-friendly artefacts by

making design understandable and in line with users’ mental models of the artefacts’ [Aune 2002]