Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	EP/G048606/1
Title:	Industry competitiveness: a supply chain learning agenda
Principal Investigator:	Fernie, Dr S
Other Investigators:
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Sch of the Built Environment
Organisation:	Heriot-Watt University
Scheme:	First Grant Scheme
Starts:	22 September 2009	Ends:	21 September 2012	Value (£):	266,323
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Construction Ops & Management
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	Construction
Related Grants:
Panel History:	Panel Date Panel Name Outcome 17 Feb 2009 Engineering Socio-Technical Systems Panel Announced
Summary on Grant Application Form
Supply chain management remains pivotal within arguments to improve the productivity of organisations and, continues to receive significant attention. Indeed, supply chain management has been drawn upon, connected with and used as a lens to explore multiple research questions of interest to both theorists and practitioners. Within the context of the UK construction sector, aspirations of improved productivity and competitiveness have been pursued for over 60 years. Supply chain management has previously been to be instrumental in delivering these aspirations. Despite this, these aspirations remain unfulfilled. Further research is therefore necessary to explore processes and practices that underpin how supply chain management delivers improved competitiveness. The assumption underpinning the researech is that a new perspective that shifts the dominant emphasis away from collaboration, procurement, culture and trust towards, notions of learning and knowledge is necessary.Organisational learning and the learning organisation are similarly argued to be instrumental to organisations' abilities to improve productivity and competitiveness. Notably, despite its longevity in the literature, organisational learning and the learning organisation continue to provoke debate. Both share a similar emphasis on the management of knowledge and how knowledge within an organisation can be leveraged. Debates within the knowledge literature are therefore fundamental to learning in the context of an organisation. Of interest in this body of literature are arguments, models and processes for creating and sharing knowledge and disparate broad theories of learning.Notably, the dominant context focused upon by traditional organisational learning theorists and practitioners has been on individuals, single organisations or communities of practice. Arguments in the supply chain management literature however suggest that competitiveness must be related to supply chain learning. This brings with it significant complexity, not least the idea that learning can transcends organisational boundaries. Connecting supply chain management with organisational learning thus, posits both challenges and opportunities for learning and, by extension, knowledge sharing and competitiveness. The proposed research seeks to connect these two concepts. From a socio-technical perspective the processes and practices of supply chain management and organisational learning will explored and further developed to bring insights to competitiveness in the UK construction sector.
Key Findings
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Potential use in non-academic contexts
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Impacts
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher
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Project URL:	http://scl.lboro.ac.uk/
Further Information:
Organisation Website:	http://www.hw.ac.uk