Innovativeness in British and French construction: The evidence from transmanche-link

This paper addresses the 'innovativeness' (the extent to which the design of the organization facilitates or inhibits innovation) of French and British project organizations. Following a review of the literature on organization design and innovativeness, data from a comparative organizational assessment of the British and French approaches to managing the Channel Tunnel construction project by Transmanche-Link are presented. These show that the British approach could well have less capacity for innovation than the French. The available evidence on the relative levels of innovation on the two sides of the Channel Tunnel are reviewed, showing that the predicted effects are found.