Cross-industry innovation: exploring the dynamics of an innovation network in construction

Journal article, 2026

Innovation in construction is a complex, collaborative effort. While inter-organizational collaboration is essential for overcoming project-based constraints, cross-industry collaboration necessitates knowledge and resources from technically proficient organizations to co-create innovative solutions tailored to construction needs. This paper explores how a collaborative innovation network evolves across industrial actors involving the construction industry and the automotive industry. Using the Industrial Network Approach (INA), this study explores the dynamics of an innovation process for co-creating a digital application called the “Efficient Load Out”, which tracks and optimizes truck loads. Data was collected through 16 semi-structured interviews with the main contractor, subcontractors, and a truck group conglomerate. The results show that the dynamic nature of network interdependencies in cross-industry innovation calls for various features of interaction among the actors in efforts of combining resources and linking activities. The interaction among actors evolve, organizational interfaces and actor roles shift across the initiation, development, pilot, and scale-up phases of the innovation process. The study contributes by showing insights into the dynamic features of context dependency in a cross-industry innovation network, including how an innovation plays out differently for the actors, both on short-term and long-term basis.