Making the zero-carbon standard home: understanding project-firm innovation in UK house building

拟议的研究探讨了碳减排议程给英国房屋建筑商带来的重大挑战。专注于新产品和工艺在项目层面的发展和它们在一个大型多区域公司的扩散，我们将问关键的研究问题，包括：建筑企业如何利用项目层面的创新？他们如何应对目前渐进式碳减排目标带来的挑战？这些创新如何在大型复杂的公司中传播？标准如何塑造创新，创新如何融入标准实践的持续变化？拟议的研究通过研究Hanham Hall的技术创新的发展，吸收和传播来探索这些问题，Hanham Hall是Barratt Developments用来解决2016年所有新住宅符合零碳标准的要求的实验性住房开发项目。Barratt Developments是英国最大的房屋建筑商之一。该房屋建筑商拥有四个品牌，在25个部门的任何时候平均拥有约400个活跃的站点。关于Hanham Hall的具体技术创新如何在Barratt Developments中传播和稳定的问题，解决了零碳标准建筑主流化的一些核心挑战。虽然许多学者强调跨项目学习和创新扩散的挑战，但很少有经验或理论工作在企业层面上的“锚定创新”。同样，在一个大型、多区域公司内，创新在项目间的传播也几乎没有做过什么工作。当人们考虑到即将到来的雄心勃勃的碳减排目标和挑战的主要组织性质时，这个问题尤其紧迫。正如许多观察家所指出的，该行业知道如何在实验性开发项目上建造低碳建筑;它不知道如何将这些知识融入标准实践。研究问题通过应用行动者网络理论和新制度主义来研究Barratt Developments的Hanham Hall的关键技术创新：（1）识别和解释Hanham Hall为响应碳减排要求而开发的一些关键产品和工艺创新;（2）审查这些创新对企业层面做法的影响（包括供应链、采购、内部管理系统、商业模式、政策和战略）;（3）跟踪将这些创新引入其他Barratt Developments住房项目的情况，并记录项目层面适应这些要素的相似性和差异;（4）利用这种分析来理论化创新、扩散和稳定/制度化的过程（在公司一级的战略、制度和做法方面）在大型项目公司内;（5）对比新制度主义和行动者网络理论在单个复杂的经验案例研究中所产生的结果。重点案例研究将借鉴对文献、相关人工制品、深入的采访和观察。对这些来源的分析将使团队能够跟踪多个Barratt开发站点中人员和物体的关联和移动。

The proposed research explores the significant challenge which the carbon reduction agenda poses for UK house builders. Focusing on the development of new products and processes at the project level and their diffusion across a large multi-regional firm we will ask key research questions that include: How can construction firms take advantage of project-level innovations? How can they meet the challenges which progressive carbon reduction targets currently pose? How do these innovations travel across large, complex firms? And how do standards shape innovations and how do innovations feed into ongoing changes in standard practice? The proposed research explores these questions by examining the development, uptake and diffusion of technical innovations from Hanham Hall, an experimental housing development which Barratt Developments has used to address the 2016 requirement that all new homes meet a zero-carbon standard. Barratt Developments is one of the largest house builders in the UK. The house builder has four brands and had an average of around 400 active sites at any one time across 25 divisions.The question of how specific technical innovations from Hanham Hall are being diffused and stabilised across Barratt Developments addresses some of the core challenges for the mainstreaming of zero-carbon standard buildings. While many scholars highlight the challenges of cross-project learning and the diffusion of innovations, little empirical or theoretical work has been done on the 'anchoring of innovations' at the firm-level. Similarly, little work has been done on the travel of innovations across projects within a large, multi-regional firm. This problem is especially pressing when one takes into account the ambitious upcoming carbon reduction targets and the largely organisational nature of the challenge. As a number of observers have noted, the sector knows how to build low-carbon buildings on experimental developments; what it does not know how to do is to incorporate that know-how into standard practice.The research questions are informed by the application of actor-network theory and neo-institutionalism to the study of key technical innovations at Hanham Hall across Barratt Developments:(1) to identify and explain the development of a number of key product and process innovations at Hanham Hall in response to carbon reduction requirements;(2) to examine the impact of those innovations on firm-level practices (including supply chains, procurement, internal management systems, business models, policies and strategies);(3) to follow the introduction of those innovations into other Barratt Developments housing projects and to document similarities and differences in project-level accommodation to those elements;(4) to use this analysis to theorise processes of innovation, diffusion and stabilisation/institutionalisation (in firm-level strategies, systems and practices) within large, project-based firms; and,(5) to contrast the findings produced by the deployment of neo-institutionalism and actor-network theory in the study of a single complex empirical case.The focal case study research will draw upon the analysis of documents, relevant artefacts, in-depth interviews and observations. The analysis of these sources will allow the team to trace the associations and movement of people and objects across multiple Barratt Development sites.