Understanding industrialised house building as a company’s dynamic capabilities [Elektronisk resurs]

• Abstract Purpose – To further the understanding of industrialised house building (IHB) from a temporal, emergentcorporate-ability perspective, this study aims to trace the build-up of corporate assets in an IHB company overtime. The research draws on dynamic capabilities, acknowledging not only what assets the company havedeveloped and currently are exploiting, but also how these assets were develop and managed (i.e. enhanced,combined, protected and potentially reconfigured) to sustain long-term competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach – A case study design was used to form a narrative that covers theevolution of an IHB company over a 25-year period. Corporate archival material, analysis of original data from alarge number of research studies during 1993-2013 and retrospective reflections of owners and managers,including crosschecking interpretations of archivalmaterial, developed and triangulated the narrative. Findings – The study presents rich empirical findings on the build-up of corporate assets. Starting from asuccessive process of exploration and exploitation formation of dynamic capabilities eventually played outinto an exponential dynamic capability build-up. The IHB case company displays the ability to not onlycontinuously exploit and renew resources and competences, but also to sense, seize and reconfigurecumulative assets over time. The exponential development of dynamic capabilities resonates to literature onhigher-order dynamic capabilities implying that: the accumulated and higher-order dynamic capabilities aredifficult to imitate and a (any) company must possess higher-order dynamic capabilities to be able to exploitand/or take up IHB. Originality/value – The study is complementing and potentially challenging frequent framings of the IHBconcept. Previous research has addressed and characterised IHB mainly by encapsulating a moment in timeand, thus, characteristics are momentary and represent static views on IHB. However, IHB has seen a strongdevelopment over the past 25 years, and the study reflects on this development from the perspective of one ofthe IHB-forerunner companies in Sweden. By exploring from a company perspective the developments,reconfiguration and capacity to develop/reconfigure over time in a changing environment, the studyintroduces an alternative understanding of IHB as dynamic capabilities. 

Ämnesord

Engineering and Technology  (hsv)

Civil Engineering  (hsv)

Construction Management  (hsv)

Teknik och teknologier  (hsv)

Samhällsbyggnadsteknik  (hsv)

Byggproduktion  (hsv)

Byggproduktion och teknik  (ltu)

Construction Management and Building Technology  (ltu)

Genre

government publication  (marcgt)

Indexterm och SAB-rubrik

Dynamic capabilities

Exploration

Exploitation

Industrialized house building

Seize

Sense