The Changing Role of the Client in Driving Innovation for Design-build Projects: Stakeholders’ Perspective

Clients undertake an important role in terms of both creating and promoting the right project conditions for realization of innovation, and understand and share the needs of both end-users and stakeholders. This study focuses on the changing role of the clients for the realization of innovation for design-build projects’ delivery process and evaluates the initiatives of the clients of involving new strategies, best practices and innovative management approaches in this process. A survey of residential, office and commercial construction projects in Turkish real estate sector has been conducted among the project stakeholders: private clients, real estate developers, consultants, and contractors. The client's role in innovation value chain stages (idea generation-conversion of ideas-diffusion of solutions) and its contribution to innovation performance is discussed in a conceptual framework.