Building technological innovation: The different role of suppliers and contractors

Due to the recent modification of public policies, we can identify an increasing technological innovation process in the Brazilian building sector, distributed on three different levels: finished building products, building suppliers products and in the contractor's own organization level. Differently from other industries, in this sector innovation happens mainly through organizational changes or by the introduction of new components, rather than as changes in manufacturing processes. We can characterize the relationships between the participants of this process as a ‘socio-technical network’, in which the manufacturers of building products play a critical role, corresponding to a ‘suppliers dominated sector’. Thus, it is possible to identify different technological strategies for each group and link it to their own concerns in the building production process. The renovation of the materials and supplies represents a work and value transfer from the contractors to their suppliers, which, in its turn, is modeled by government intervention and by the extreme variability of building production, in quantity, in typology or in geographic distribution.