The climate of innovation in the UAE and its construction industry

Purpose

The ability to develop new products and services has motivated the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to enter the global race for excellence and surprise the world with its iconic construction innovations. The key challenge for the UAE is how to encourage and enable organizations, public and private, to embrace innovation as the norm and create a positive environment for innovation. In this context, this study was carried out with the aim of examining the factors that can create innovation–conducive climate in construction and the measures that can be used to assess such a climate.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper reports research effort to develop and test a conceptual model that hypothesizes relationships amongst different constructs that make up the climate for innovation in UAE organizations, construction and non-construction. In verifying the conceptual model and testing the validity of the hypotheses, a quantitative study was conducted based on data collected via questionnaire survey. A total of 101 respondents participated in the study, majority of whom were employed in private international firms, semi-public firms and private local firms.

Findings

The findings showed that, overall, the climate of innovation in the UAE organizations is moderately strong where construction firms performed slightly better than non-construction firms in demonstrating an innovation–conducive atmosphere. In this context, the results found a need for senior management to provide tangible support in terms of providing more resources for the skill base to develop further and seek better ways of developing creative solutions. The main conclusion provided evidence that leadership has positively influenced the climate for innovation and as a result delivered an improved business performance.

Originality/value

The research developed a new conceptual model and the constructs that can be used to understand the climate for innovation and assist researchers in examining the complex dynamics of innovation in the local construction industry.