A survey of 335 businesses in the Australian road industry has been carried out to ascertain those factors that make firms innovate. 'Innovative' is measured by adoption rates of advanced technologies and practices, and the range of innovation drivers reviewed encompasses business strategy and environment. The findings indicate that business strategies are more important than business conditions, and that the following three strategies are significant in differentiating between firms with high and low adoption rates: (1) hiring new graduates; (2) introducing new technologies; and (3) enhancing technical capabilities. The findings also highlight the importance of undertaking R&D and encouraging employee ideas for improvement. The public policy implications are that the quality of university graduates should be protected and advanced, as should technical skills within public sector client agencies.
Survey results provide a preliminary assessment of the relative contribution of a range of tactical business strategies to innovation performance by firms in the Australian construction industry. Over 1,300 firms were surveyed in 2004, resulting in a response rate of 29%. Respondents were classified as high, medium or low innovators according to an innovation index based on the novelty and impact of their innovations and their adoption of listed technological and organizational advances. The relative significance of 23 business strategies concerning (1) employees, (2) marketing, (3) technology, (4) knowledge and (5) relationships was examined by determining the extent to which they distinguished high innovators from low innovators. The individual business strategies that most strongly distinguished high innovators were (1) 'investing in R&D', (2) 'participating in partnering and alliances on projects', (3) 'ensuring project learnings are transferred into continuous business processes', (4) 'monitoring international best practice', and (5) 'recruiting new graduates'. Of the five types of strategies assessed, marketing strategies were the least significant in supporting innovation. The results provide practical guidance to managers in project-based industries wishing to improve their innovation performance.
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