Exploring the Innovation Ecosystem Concept for a Construction Industry in Transition

The construction industry is increasingly facing societal challenges, such as climate change, resource scarcity, and digitalization. Traditional ways of organizing construction appear to be unsuitable for coping with these challenges. This calls for more systemic solutions in construction that reach beyond single projects or sectors to transform to a more resilient society. In this research, the innovation ecosystem perspective is explored to open up new horizons for dealing with the challenges. The innovation ecosystem can be understood as a multi-stakeholder network around certain innovative value propositions. Several theoretical innovation ecosystems characteristics are applied to the construction context by means of two illustrative cases from the Dutch construction sector. Results indicate that the innovation ecosystem perspective has the potential to both deal with the challenges involved and foster the innovativeness required for transitioning the sector. Benefits include the consideration of actors that are outside the construction domain, such as organizations for data management in the context of the circular economy, as well the long-term relation building among interdependent actors. However, additional case study research is needed to explore the full potential of its application in construction.