<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>This study attempts to examine the differences in the collaborative activities between the Turkish contracting firms that are listed as the “Top 225 International Contractors” by <italic>Engineering News Record</italic> (ENR), according to their international revenues, and other large contracting firms that are not on this list. For this purpose, 30 large-scale Turkish general contracting firms, including 15 listed by the ENR, have been examined in terms of their collaborations during the innovation process as well as the levels of significance for the sources of information that serve as the means of “sources of innovation”. Results show some remarkable differences between the top-listed firms and other largescale contracting companies. The levels of importance indicated for the collaborations made with “universities and research institutions” and the sources of information “conferences, fairs and exhibitions” and “scientific/technical publications” show remarkable differences between the two groups of companies. Contractors who are not ENR listed are more active in making collaborations. While the number of collaborations is increasing in the timeline, both groups of contractors indicate the most important collaborations as “consultants, private R&amp;D institutions” and “suppliers”. Findings also show a decreasing interest against collaborations with universities. Finally, findings of the research are discussed in the context of innovation, expecting to contribute to international contracting firms in evaluating their innovation approaches to their competitive advantage.</p></abstract>

This study attempts to examine the differences in the collaborative activities between the Turkish contracting firms that are listed as the “Top 225 International Contractors” by Engineering News Record (ENR), according to their international revenues, and other large contracting firms that are not on this list. For this purpose, 30 large-scale Turkish general contracting firms, including 15 listed by the ENR, have been examined in terms of their collaborations during the innovation process as well as the levels of significance for the sources of information that serve as the means of “sources of innovation”. Results show some remarkable differences between the top-listed firms and other largescale contracting companies. The levels of importance indicated for the collaborations made with “universities and research institutions” and the sources of information “conferences, fairs and exhibitions” and “scientific/technical publications” show remarkable differences between the two groups of companies. Contractors who are not ENR listed are more active in making collaborations. While the number of collaborations is increasing in the timeline, both groups of contractors indicate the most important collaborations as “consultants, private R&D institutions” and “suppliers”. Findings also show a decreasing interest against collaborations with universities. Finally, findings of the research are discussed in the context of innovation, expecting to contribute to international contracting firms in evaluating their innovation approaches to their competitive advantage.

Innovation enablers: A review of Turkish contractors’ collaborative activities and sources of information

Organization, Technology and Management in Construction: an International Journal

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

This study attempts to examine the differences in the collaborative activities between the Turkish contracting firms that are listed as the “Top 225...

	Other firm/group of firms	Suppliers	Customers	Rival firms	Consultants, private R&D institutions	Universities

Mann–Whitney U	6,000	7,500	3,000	6,000	7,500	,000
Wilcoxon W	12,000	13,500	9,000	12,000	13,500	6,000
Z	–,775	,000	–1,549	–,775	,000	–2,366
Asymp. Sig. (two-tailed)	,439	1,000	,121	,439	1,000	,018

	Public research institutes	Other specialist institutes	Conferences, fairs and exhibitions	Scientific and technical journals	Unions and associations, etc.

Mann-Whitney U	4,500	4,500	1,500	1,500	3,000
Wilcoxon W	10,500	10,500	7,500	7,500	9,000
Z	–1,171	–1,183	–1,960	–1,932	–1,587
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)	,242	,237	,050	,053	,112

	Other firm/group of firms	Suppliers	Customers	Rival firms	Consultants, private R&D institutions	Universities

Mann–Whitney U	24,500	36,500	38,000	37,000	38,500	29,000
Wilcoxon W	60,500	91,500	74,000	92,000	93,500	65,000
Z	–1,525	–,329	–,198	–,320	–,138	–1,114
Asymp. Sig. (two-tailed)	,127	,742	,843	,749	,890	,265

	Public research institutes	Other specialist institutes	Conferences, fairs and exhibitions	Scientific and technical journals	Unions and associations, etc.

Mann–Whitney U	30,500	39,000	28,000	33,500	29,000
Wilcoxon W	66,500	94,000	64,000	69,500	65,000
Z	–1,070	–,102	–1,109	–,605	–1,116
Asymp. Sig. (two-tailed)	,285	,919	,268	,545	,264

Innovation enablers: A review of Turkish contractors’ collaborative activities and sources of information

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Mar 14, 2017

Page range: 1397 - 1404

Received: Jun 01, 2016

Accepted: Jul 28, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/otmcj-2016-0002

Keywords
construction innovation, innovation brokers, sources of innovation, Turkey, international contractors, ENR

© 2016 A. Tolga Ilter, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Contractor group × importance level for sources of information and collaborative activities (2007–2009).

Contractor group × importance level for sources of information and collaborative activities (2004–2006).

Innovation enablers: A review of Turkish contractors’ collaborative activities and sources of information

Article Category: Research Article

Published Online: Mar 14, 2017

Page range: 1397 - 1404

Received: Jun 01, 2016

Accepted: Jul 28, 2016

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/otmcj-2016-0002

Keywordsconstruction innovation, innovation brokers, sources of innovation, Turkey, international contractors, ENR

© 2016 A. Tolga Ilter, published by De Gruyter Open

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Contractor group × importance level for sources of information and collaborative activities (2007–2009).

Contractor group × importance level for sources of information and collaborative activities (2004–2006).

Keywords
construction innovation, innovation brokers, sources of innovation, Turkey, international contractors, ENR