Innovation and current practice of quantity surveying firms in Kenya

Abstract

This project is on various innovations models and tries to measure the extent on to which the Kenyan quantity surveying firms have adopted. Innovation is seen as a key activity in improving construction industry performance. The study will be seeking to develop a framework for understanding innovation in all construction professional service firms; i.e. to identify a way of classifying the types of innovation that such firms might pursue. The research design takes a nonprobability or qualitative approach. The researcher's intention has been to develop an overview of possible evidence for innovation amongst a reasonably homogenous, but necessarily limited, group of firms. The research project carries some of the features of a survey in that both questionnaires and structured interviews were carried out with all the firms selected for study. Through literature review the research takes a crack at identifying factors that can be used as evidence of innovation The path of innovation that each firm follows wi11be different. Each firm acquires specific capabilities overtime and these tend to determine the path of future development. The more innovative firms display a number of characteristics that include close interaction with clients, investment in ICT systems that span the whole organisation and development of organisational structures and culture that facilitate the systematic acquisition of new knowledge and its incorporation into new services and new processes of service delivery. This work is organised into five chapters. Chapter one comprises Introduction, background, problem statement, objective of the study, hypothesis significance .of the study, literature review/ theoretical framework and research methodology. Chapter two contains the literature review, Chapter three introduces the study area. Chapter four contains analysis and presentation of data that the researcher collected from the field. Chapter five contains findings, Summary and conclusions, the future role of quantity surveyors and areas of further research.