The Role of Integrated Project Delivery Elements in Adoption of Integral Innovations
The Role of Integrated Project Delivery Elements in Adoption of Integral Innovations
The Role of Integrated Project Delivery Elements in Adoption of Integral Innovations
ABSTRACT
Product and process innovations in the building sector are continually being developed, yet only
innovations that fit within the current industry supply chain diffuse. Integral innovations such
as radiant heating/cooling cross professional and trade specializations, break industry standards,
and redefine how existing modules fit together. These innovations diffuse three times more
slowly than innovations that fit within the existing supply chain. Integrated Project Delivery
(IPD) offers a collaborative framework with the potential to address the industry fragmentation
preventing integral innovation diffusion. This study uses a mix-method research design to
understand which elements of IPD play a role in adoption of integral innovations. First,
researchers use grounded theory observations and participant interviews from four large IPD
projects to uncover the legal, management, and workplace strategies at play during innovation.
These elements include owner involvement and vision, early involvement of key participants,
team idea generation and support, colocation, fiscal transparency and flexibility, lean
construction principles, incentivized contracts with guaranteed cost reimbursement, collaborative
decision making, trust and accountability, and virtual design and construction. Second,
researchers outline a methodology for using a fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis
(fsQCA) to further understand and refine these propositions for a medium-N population. An
exploratory fsQCA of seven IPD cases finds colocation, virtual design and construction, owner
involvement and vision, and (for non-renovation projects) lean construction principles are
necessary conditions for adoption of integral innovations.
1
Doctoral Candidate, Global Projects Center, Stanford University, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering,
dhall12@stanford.edu
2
Doctoral Candidate, Global Projects Center, Stanford University Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering,
afroz@stanford.edu
3
Doctoral Candidate, Enterprise Simulation Laboratory SimLab, Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland, teemu.lehtinen@aalto.fi.
4
Kumagai Professor of Engineering; Director, Global Projects Center, Stanford University, Dept. of Civil &
Environmental Engineering, Y2E2 Building Room 241, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305-4020;
ray.levitt@stanford.edu
5
Undergraduate Student, Stanford University, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering,
christine.li@stanford.edu
6
Graduate Student, Stanford University, Dept. of Civil & Environmental Engineering, prithvip@stanford.edu
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Proceedings EPOC 2014 Conference
INTRODUCTION
Buildings in the United States are currently the single largest contributor to national energy
consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; annually they account for 41% of total US
GHG emissions, 40% of primary energy use, and 74% of national electricity consumption (DOE
2012). Innovative building products like radiant heating/cooling and smart building control
systems exist with the potential to improve energy efficiency and reduce GHG emissions. A
complete deployment of these green innovations would reduce building energy consumption by
25-30% and save up to $130 billion annually (Choi et al. 2009). With only a 2% premium in
upfront project costs to support green innovations, owners receive on average a 20% savings of
total construction costs throughout the buildings life cycle (Kats et al. 2003).
Yet many energy-saving technologies that require low initial investment and have
relatively short payback periods have seen slow market diffusion in the building industry. It
seems not all innovations have an equal rate of adoption. Innovations that fit within the existing
supply chain tend to diffuse more quickly than innovations that cross traditional discipline
boundaries (Sheffer 2011) even when the cross-discipline innovations offer superior system-wide
gains in cost, schedule, and energy performance. This is largely due to a construction industry
characterized by extreme fragmentation, technological risk aversion, a culture of low cost
competitive bidding, and broken agency in decision making (Levitt & Sheffer 2011).
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) has emerged as a progressive delivery method to
address these institutional barriers. IPD promotes a high level of quasi-firm integration on project
teams through formal and informal project elements such as colocation, multi-party contracts,
early involvement of stakeholders, and liability waivers. This collaborative framework for IPD
can be viewed as a virtual horizontal and vertical integration of the fragmented supply chain.
This study uses a mix-method research design to understand which elements of IPD play
a role in adoption of integral innovations. First, grounded theory is used to uncover elements
present during adoption of innovations at four IPD project sites. When integral innovations are
brainstormed, vetted, implemented, or discarded, which formal or informal elements are present?
In other words, what are the potential IPD ingredients of cross-discipline innovation? Second,
the four IPD projects are nested within a seven case data set and analyzed using a fuzzy set
Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). Which combinations of elements are necessary for
high levels of integral innovation adoption on IPD projects? Preliminary results are presented for
the seven-case data set. More importantly, researchers lay the groundwork for a future medium-
N fsQCA for deeper exploration of the relationship between IPD elements and integral
innovations.
POINT OF DEPARTURE
Construction Industry Fragmentation
The construction industry is characterized by three dimensions of fragmentation (Fergusson
1993). Horizontal fragmentation occurs in the trade-by-trade competitive bidding environment of
traditional project deliveries. Without cross-subsidization among trades, globally-optimal
innovations that offer life cycle project gains cannot compete with traditional solutions that are
more cost-effective from the perspective of a particular building element or phase. Vertical
fragmentation causes each project phase to have a different set of stakeholders, decision-makers,
and values. Broken agency describes the self-interested behavior of parties in one phase passing
costs off to stakeholders in a subsequent phase to the detriment of the long-term user (Henisz et
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with high horizontal and vertical integration are two and a half times more likely to adopt
integral innovations than standard
Average projects (see figure
Rate of Implementation 2). and Integral
of Modular
Innovations by Teams of Varying Degrees of Integration
50% 47%
Average Implementation Rate 45%
44%
40%
35%
30% No Integration (neither
25% 26% vertical nor horizontal)
20% Medium Integration
18%
15% (vertical or horizontal)
10%
10% High Integration
5%
0% (vertical & horizontal)
modular integral
Innovation Span
FigureR15:
Figure
2
Average
ate
Integration Levelsoand
of
Implementation
Innovation
f
Modular
Implementation
and
Integral
Innovation
by
Teams
of
Varying
Degrees
of
Integration
(Sheffer
2011)
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with lean work processes and shared 3D and 4D BIM to facilitate sharing of information and
joint problem solving.
IPD should, in theory, have a significant impact on the adoption rates of integral
innovations. It reduces horizontal and vertical fragmentation through shared incentives and
creation of a "virtually integrated supply chain." The framework can mitigate longitudinal
fragmentation by offering multi-project commitments, thus addressing the issue of learning
disability. IPD focuses on the formation of cross-functional, high-performance teams
characterized by high levels of creativity, information sharing, and exceptional work output
(Ashcraft 2011; Dougherty 1992; Van Der Vegt & Bunderson 2005; Chinowsky, Diekmann, &
Galotti 2008). The framework for IPD is informed by theory on team creativity, social exchange,
and team cohesion (Hackman, 2011; Homans 1958; Robbins, 2011). IPD facilitates the
formation of strong social networks and knowledge sharing both necessary for integral
innovations through team colocation, shared incentives, and multi-project commitments.
Finally, the US legal system pursues joint and several liability for any failures which
means that one provision makes a person liable for errant information that causes damages.
While this seems necessary, it causes firms to regulate their communication with others
extremely carefully. Essentially, all design data is closely guarded and not shared (AIA 2005;
Ashcraft 2011). Liability waivers in IPD reduce inter-team disputes about cross-liability,
encouraging free information flow. Thus, the improved legal dynamic could improve team
creativity and knowledge sharing leading to increased amount of innovations in projects.
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Case Descriptions
# Meeting
ID Case Contract Type of project # Interviews
Observations
3 Party IFOA + Trade Healthcare (Medical
1 Suburban MOB 5 1
Joining Agreements Office Building)
Healthcare (Patient
2 Medical Center 12 Party IFOA 14 5
Care Pavilion)
Suburban MOB
Suburban MOB replaces an existing medical office building with a two story, 120,000 square
foot building including a 40,000 square foot Community Cancer Care Center. Because of site
restrictions, the building is constructed on top of a two-story, 125,000 square foot parking
structure. The original logic was to spend fifteen months building out the complete parking
structure followed by eighteen months for building construction. Instead, the team decided to
construct the top deck of the garage first to reduce total construction time by three months.
Although some additional cost was incurred to build the remainder of the garage from the top
down, the innovative solution provided a net savings of $300,000.
Medical Center
Medical Center is a 250,000 square foot patient care pavilion with a total of 243 medical/surgical
and acute rehabilitation beds. The building consists of two major components, an eleven-story
patient care tower with basement and a rooftop central utility plant. The project was built around
a fully operational urban hospital campus that introduced additional logistical challenges. The
project targets LEED Silver certification. The Medical Center piloted an Auger pile foundation
system that was five times faster to build than a traditional system. The Auger pile system cost
$300,000 to test and one year for regulatory approval but resulted in a net savings of two million
dollars to the project.
Coast Hospital
Coast Hospital is a 900,000 square foot ground-up hospital complex consisting of three
integrated buildings. The complex will host operations for childrens, womens and cancer
hospitals with a total of 289 beds. The project duration is eight years including the design and
construction phases. Coast Hospital uses lean construction methodologies, such as target value
design and last planner system, and full colocation at a Big Room on site. The project targets
LEED Gold certification.
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Commercial HQ
The Commercial HQ project delivers several buildings organized to create a large campus
headquarters. The IPD contract is a three party agreement between owner, architect, and
contractor with subjoining agreements for approximately seven subcontractors. Construction
began at 50% design completion, which represents a significant overlap between design and
construction phases. The project targets a LEED platinum score.
Radiant3Heating/Cooling Forced3Air3HVAC3 x x
Slotted3Architectural/3 Structural3Deck3w/3Acoustical3
x x
Structural3Deck Ceilings
*actual'product'interfaces,'standards,'and/or'specifications,'**timing'of'design/construction'process,'trades'involved,'etc.
Findings/Results
The four case studies projects produces sixteen integral innovations (see figure 4 above). Some
innovations required a changed interface, some used prefabrication strategies, and all of them
required a change in the design or construction process.
The Story of One Integral Innovation
One example of an integral innovation is radiant heating/cooling adopted into the Commercial
HQ design. Radiant heating/cooling is a HVAC solution driven by radiation rather than
convection. It requires an under floor water system integrated with a structural slab. Radiant
heating/cooling requires a change in interface (alternative structural and HVAC design
decisions) and a change in process (alternative construction schedule sequencing with piping
required before structural slab pour) among mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and structural
disciplines (Sheffer 2011). A project manager for the mechanical trade partner describes the
challenge of implementing radiant heating/cooling, radiant tubes never get put in because we
never have this kind of cross group coordination. That is a major, major cross group
coordination between the structure on the ground floor.
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On the Commercial HQ project, the owner gave high value to indoor air quality and user
comfort. In addition, the owner was concerned with life cycle cost and the overall IPD leadership
team was concerned with first cost. During conceptual design, a colocated sub team cluster of
architects, engineers and trade partners met often to brainstorm possible HVAC systems that
would meet these objectives. Once the merits of several potential ideas were considered, the
mechanical engineers and trade partners conducted preliminary pricing analyses to narrow the
field.
The sub team made the final selection of a radiant system by choosing-by-advantage
instead of deciding by lowest first cost. The choosing-by-advantage strategy factors life cycle
costs and the schedule impact to other trades in order to emphasize selection of a system with the
greatest global advantage. Next, team members made reliable promises in design development
regarding cost and schedule with the expectation that commitments will be kept during
construction. Finally, the team
incorporated the radiant floor
heating into the building design
using multi-trade building
information modeling (BIM)
sessions and into the project
budget by entering the cost into the
Target Value Design.
The integral innovation of
radiant heating/cooling required
the following ten elements: owner
involvement and vision, early
involvement of key participants,
team idea generation and support,
colocation, fiscal transparency and
flexibility, lean construction
principles, incentivized contracts
with guaranteed cost Figure
5
-
Radiant
Heating/Cooling
Implementation
Steps
reimbursement, collaborative decision making, trust and accountability, and virtual design and
construction (VDC) (see figure 5). These same ten elements emerged from observations and
participant interviews across all four case studies. The sequence that the elements appeared was
not always the same. The following sections describe with further detail each of these ten
elements in the context of IPD and integral innovations.
Owner Involvement & Vision
Owner involvement and vision can be an important seed to innovation. An owners vision and
goals on a project will have the largest influence on team decision-making. In addition, the
owners role is more iterative in the IPD process when compared to traditional projects. Instead
of designated design review stages, owner feedback is solicited in a more continuous and
informal manner. Therefore owner representatives must be bestowed with the authority to
provide immediate feedback on ideas as they emerge. Otherwise the owner may emerge as a
bottleneck that impedes the momentum of innovative ideas.
Strong owner involvement acts as a support system for idea incubation. The IPD team
tends to mirror the owners enthusiasm and expectations. Trouble arises when owner directives
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are not clear and consistent. The owner must be comfortable with the speed of the project, and
must maintain a helpful but not overbearing presence at meetings.
Early Involvement of Key Participants
Early involvement of key participants provides a decentralized source of innovative ideas. By
having everyone at the table, ideas that are not feasible can be discarded early in the process,
allowing teams to focus on good ideas. Trade partners weigh in with immediate feedback on
constructability. Accurate pricing centers the discussion on real numbers instead of theoretical
savings. Team consensus and buy-in from all parties empowers trade partners to take
ownership of cost and schedule commitments.
The degree of early involvement varied between projects. On Medical Center and
Commercial HQ, the general contractor and trade partners were involved from the beginning of
conceptual design. One Commercial HQ interviewee expressed that the builders were possibly
involved too early in the process; during the first few weeks they did not have enough work to
do. At Coast Hospital, one general contractor thought starting trade partners at the end of
schematic design was too late, I think the biggest tweak I would make is probably bringing
more of the major trades on earlier.
Colocation
The use of colocation encourages informal collaboration from these key participants. Within a
large trailer or open floor plan office commonly referred to as the Big Room, team members
are arranged into interdisciplinary sub team clusters such as Core and Shell, Faade, Interiors, or
Services. Colocation encourages iterative and immediate face-to-face communication. As a
Suburban MOB trade partner puts it, you want to be there. You do not want to go back to the
old way of take a snap shot, and PDF it, and email it to somebody, and wait for a reply. The
first few days of an innovative idea can be crucial. Informal information exchange over lunch or
coffee with a team member from another discipline can vet out potential obstacles and form an
interdisciplinary coalition of support for good ideas. Colocation can lose effectiveness when
team members have different levels of engagement. For example, team members from two cases
expressed frustration that the architects (whose home firm was located in another state) were
only colocated two or three days per week.
Team Idea Generation & Support
Innovation emerges from a culture promoting team idea generation and support. This culture is
defined by the presence of strong project stewards, a commitment to social recognition, and
creative thinking outside of traditional silos. The presence of strong leadership and
stewardship on the project is indicative of an environment that fosters good ideas. Three such
leadership roles emerged during adoption of integral innovations: Champion, Leader, and
Facilitator. The Champion takes up the cause for one specific innovation and campaigns its
benefits to doubters. The Leader encourages the team to remain true to the overall project vision
by promoting a work environment of energy, enthusiasm, teamwork, collaboration, and
motivation. The Facilitator collects input and solves challenges from disciplines impacted by the
innovation. The Facilitator takes an interdisciplinary vantage point to ensure all team members
capture the global benefits of the innovation.
Social recognition actively fosters innovation. The Commercial HQ team awarded a
weekly Innovation trophy to different team members. During the resequencing of the parking
structure, the Suburban MOB leadership emailed the entire team saying thank you for this
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engineering group who created this. This has benefitted the other cluster by this much. This
provided recognition to the innovating sub team. It also reinforced the global benefit of the
innovation to sub teams required to redo previously completed work.
IPD team members need to be people with the right mindset for collaboration.
Members need the willingness do things differently. Creativity, adaptability, the right
personality, and the ability to think and work outside the box are valuable characteristics.
According to project manager, IPD is a way to leverage these traits for the overall benefit of the
project:
The beauty of IPD, if you do it right, is the only reason you are in this room is because
you are able to do that very thing. The only reason you are here is because you are
innovative. We brought you here to tap into that innovation. We want to free up that
innovation and the costs associated with that innovation, by telling you that you work for
us now. (General contractor, Commercial HQ)
Incentivized Contracts with Guaranteed Cost Reimbursement
Performance-based multi-party IPD contracts often referred to as shared risk/reward,
painshare/gainshare, or skin in the game - provide organizations with incentive to consider
innovations providing overall project savings even at an increase to their own project costs.
Stakeholders are more likely to consider how decisions and actions will impact the work of
others. Promises of innovation savings are vetted out among all parties, because as a Commercial
HQ electrical trade partner explains, there are a lot of interdependencies. Because if I make a
decision, how does it affect my trade partner? Do their costs go up because I made a decision for
my costs to go down? Shared risk/reward creates a built-in challenge that invites creativity
and incentivizes cross-discipline innovation.
These multi-party contracts provide an innovation safety net for both the individual and
the organization. For traditional projects, time spent pursuing an innovative idea will count as
billable hours that must be absorbed by an individuals own firm. By contrast, multi-party
contracts diffuse an individuals research and coordination overhead across the billable hours of
all project participants. In addition, guaranteed cost reimbursement shifts some risk away from
organizations. Should a failed innovation cause a project to miss targets, the organization still
will be reimbursed for project costs (but not earn profit) instead of taking a loss on the project.
Fiscal Transparency & Flexibility
Multi-party contracts provide IPD teams with transparency for understanding cost decisions. The
cost uncertainty of new technologies may discourage builders or owners from innovation, even if
these features have potential to save long-term costs in the buildings lifetime. Accurate and
transparent budgets vetted by multiple trade partners mitigate much of this uncertainty.
Multi-party contracts also provide the flexibility for agile cost shifting. Cost shifting is
the flexibility to quickly allocate costs across traditional horizontal and vertical cost silos. During
the re-sequencing of the parking deck that trimmed three months of schedule, the Suburban
MOB quickly shifted savings to labor and project management overhead toward additional
structural steel design and material costs. A project manager explains the benefit of agile cost
shifting:
Imagine yourself as a structural engineer. You have already designed this building. You
have done all of the calculation. You have designed the structure already and all of a
sudden your contractor is coming in and saying, I can save the client time and money,
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Proceedings EPOC 2014 Conference
but it is going to require re-detailing a lot of construction connections. You are thinking
how I am going to get paid for this because it is a lot more work. On a traditional project
if you have a lump sum fixed fee contract to your architect, you are going to say it is
going to take me x number of hours. I will give you a cost proposal and add services
proposal. The architect has to review that and then give that to the owner and say, Is
this what you want to do? . If this process took three weeks to vet out, it would have
killed the idea. (General contractor, Suburban MOB)
Lean Construction Principles
Lean construction principles include target value design (TVD), pull scheduling, reliable
promises, daily huddles, last planner, and other methods to promote efficiency in the design and
construction stages of a project. Lean construction is not the source of new ideas; instead it
provides strategies to better facilitate cross-disciplinary implementation of the innovative
concepts. Lean provides additional flexibility to the client, decentralizes decision-making, and
squeezes out buffers and inefficiencies from the process. Using the last planner system, Coast
Hospital project managers noted increased ownership of the schedule by subcontractors. The
participation of subcontractors at Medical Center increased conversation and dialogue about
coordination problems. By placing more tasks on the critical path, lean construction surfaces
potential cross-discipline coordination problems more quickly.
Collaborative Decision-Making
Collaborative decision-making requires parties to jointly agree on important choices. By
leveraging experiences from all parties, collaborative decision-making brings forward innovation
implementation and coordination concerns. Projects that promote a collaborative decision-
making is reinforced by both organizational strategy and project culture. Project sub teams are
created using inter-organizational clusters. These clusters often sit together in the Big Room and
work as a team to meet target value design targets. Some clusters participate in team building
activities. As opposed to discipline silos, clusters reinforce shared identity and allegiance to the
inter-organizational sub team. Collaborative decision-making also requires individuals with a
mindset to collaborate. As a Commercial HQ engineer explains, you cannot Hit the lights, and
just type away, and work in those silos but instead must have a willingness to engage and
collaborate with your cluster.
Trust & Accountability
Explicit efforts need to be made towards building team trust and accountability. Trust enhances
collaboration between parties. Without a strong foundation of trust, it is difficult to reach
consensus and information exchange in a meaningful manner. By withholding information,
teams can limit innovation possibilities. Trust is necessary to eliminate wasted time and energy
in rework, as explained below:
So were drawing within our database, which matches our fabrication use and cuts out
a huge chunk of the fat in the middle of not redrawing things. Theyre being drawn for
the first time but the first pass of them is the finished product, right? So well be creating
the construction permits for the drawings. Then [the engineers are] going to stamp them
so that is a very uncomfortable situation for them at first. They had a hard time kind of
letting go of that. (Mechanical trade partner, Commercial HQ)
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The essence of collaboration is to get input from other perspectives. A lack of trust would mean a
disregard for their general knowledge in their field. Similarly, using a shared BIM requires trust
in the discipline that originally created the model. This factor is especially relevant considering
the adversarial relationships that most building professionals are used to working within. In
addition, accountability encourages radical out-of-the-box thinking. As a Medical Center
mechanical partner describes, accountability enables teams to do their best work by trusting in
their team members to be true to their word. Now [people] are telling you the true story. This is
what I need to do, this is why I need to do it, and it will help us all be successful.
Virtual Design & Construction (VDC)
Similar to lean construction, using Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) strategies allows for
more effective cross-discipline implementation of integral innovations. VDC is the product,
work processes, and organization of multi-discipline building information models (BIMs). A
BIM allows for concept visualization to communicate innovative products in the context of
location. Researchers observed a live modeling session on the Commercial HQ where an
interdisciplinary team representing structural, MEP, and the general contractor worked
collaboratively to coordinate the placement of the vertical shared utility racks. The team used a
BIM to visualize the tolerances and understand the tradeoffs necessary between structural and
MEP requirements. In addition, cross-discipline clash detection sessions resolve coordination
conflicts and increase confidence in the constructability of innovations. 4D schedule
visualization effectively communicates and details a change in the construction sequence that
may be required by an integral innovation.
External Barriers to Innovation
Two external barriers to innovation cited by interview participants are regulatory agencies and
unions. IPD may provide projects with the ability to navigate these barriers more effectively than
other delivery methods. For example, the multi-party contract structure of Medical Center
spreads the cost risk of regulatory testing the innovative auger pile system across all stakeholders
provides. Should the regulatory testing not be approved, the guaranteed cost reimbursement
provides a safety net that in the worst-case scenario, only profit and not hard costs will be risked.
To avoid union conflict, Commercial HQ planned multi-trade union teams to prefabricate shared
multi-use horizontal and vertical service racks together at an offsite location.
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between variables and explicitly considers how condi- ual characteristics reduced into binary categories of 1
tions, in isolation or combined, create different path- (attribute is present/high) or 0 (absent/low) values.
ways to similar outcomes. This method is particularly Concerns about the resulting loss of information led
Proceedings EPOC 2014 Conference
attractive to construction researchers investigating to the subsequent development of the mvQCA and
large-scale projects for which a large dataset may be fsQCA variants, which respectively accommodate
stepped and continuous gradations of non-binary vari-
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technique, it is particularly attractive to
construction and engineering researchers because the magnitude and expense of large projects
often limits the sample size available for study. The frequently complex relationships among the
variables of interest make resulting small datasets difficult to investigate using conventional
quantitative methods (Jordan et al. 2011).
This paper demonstrates a methodological approach to apply fsQCA to further
understand the relationship between IPD elements and integral innovations. This work is an
exploratory exercise to evaluate the relationships between our case studies. The fsQCA work
intends to suggest preliminary findings and to lay the foundation for future application of
fsQCA. This fsQCA work makes early preliminary claims about necessary conditions for
innovations in IPD projects, but a larger case set is needed to test and validate this early theory.
Additional Case Descriptions
The original four case studies are nested alongside three additional case studies produced by the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the University of Minnesota School of Architecture
(AIA et al. 2012) to create a data set of seven total cases. A survey distributed to the additional
case participants uncovered the degree to which integral innovations were implemented. Some
elements such as idea generation or trust rely on the qualitative narratives that arise from meeting
observations and participant interviews. While we affirm the importance of these elements in the
adoption of integral innovations, these elements are excluded from the fsQCA at this time.
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Proceedings EPOC 2014 Conference
qualitative breakpoints: full membership (1), full non-membership (0), and the cross-over point
(.5). The cross-over point demonstrates maximum ambiguity for membership of a condition to be
more "in" or more "out" of a set (.5) (Rihoux & Ragin 2007). For example, full membership for
early involvement of key participants is defined as conceptual design participation of all key
stakeholders, including the owner, architect, engineers, general contractor, and key trade
partners. When conceptual design does not include the trade partners, the case is still considered
more in the set (0.7 score). When involvement of contractor and trades is delayed until design
development, the case is considered more out of the set (0.4 score). The condition integral is
scored on a continuous spectrum with 1.0 representing multiple adoptions of significant integral
innovations and 0.0 representing no adoption of integral innovation. The condition New uses a
dichotomous score (score of 0 for retrofit or 1 for new construction); it is the lone exception to
continuous fuzzy metrics. Researchers used coded field notes, interviews, and case study
literature to construct the fuzzy-set truth table shown below (see figures 8 & 9).
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fsQCA Results
The complete complex, intermediate, and parsimonious solutions are shown in the appendix.
Figure 10 below shows the intermediate solution. VDC, Owner Involvement & Vision, and
Colocation are necessary conditions for integral innovations for renovation projects. When a
project is new construction (not a renovation or retrofit), lean construction principles are also
required. The consistency, which signals whether an empirical connection merits the close
attention of the investigator, is given at 0.89. If a hypothesized subset relation is not consistent,
then the theory about the inclusion of the element for integral innovations is not supported
(Rihoux & Ragin 2007).
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APPENDIX
fsQCA Results
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