Title:
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An investigation of critical success factors for the creation of clusters within micro companies working in the construction sector
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Even though the adoption and implementation of innovation within the
construction sector is an area that has attracted wide attention, gaps have been
found in terms of the interface between innovation, construction sector and micro
firms and the concept of clusters. Therefore the aim of this study is to focus on
clustering as the way towards innovation, and to investigate what the Critical
Success Factors (CSFs) are for the creation of a cluster within micro companies
working in the construction sector within a specific context, Greece. To do this
an explorative study was implemented adopting the Pragmatism approach and
choosing for the research the mixed method approach. The research design was
divided into three phases. The preliminary where the theoretical foundations of
the conceptual framework has been set; the fieldwork where both structured
questionnaires and in-depth interviews were used for data collection; and the
modifications where the Conceptual Framework was refined to an Empirical one,
within the specific context of the Greek construction industry.
The findings of the research demonstrated that the Greek construction sector is
mainly comprised by micro firms with less than five employees, and that such
firms had interesting perspectives to innovation and clusters. In this regard, the
results established that even though the Greek construction sector shared most of
the evident CSFs, their importance was altered and more were added based on
regional specificities and operating environment. Examining the original
nineteen CSFs, clarifying them and resulting in thirty two CFSs for the
construction sector in the Greek context is clearly one of the main contributions
of this work. Therefore even though there is a number of contribution referred in
this thesis's last chapter, this study's key contribution in terms of policy is by
offering focused interventions to the local authorities; in terms of practice by
presenting the Greek case study as an example for other European countries that
share and faces similar challenges; and in terms of theory by introducing a
framework based on the literature and refmed in practice linking CSFs for
innovation adoption, clustering formation and the construction sector, under the
scope of micro firms.
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