Construction Management & Economics

Ehwi, Richmond Juvenile; Oti-Sarpong, Kwadwo; Shojaei, Reyhaneh; Burgess, Gemma

doi: 10.1080/01446193.2021.2007537pmid: N/A

Abstract Debates regarding research methodologies in construction, engineering and management (CEM) literature are long-standing. However, in the growing literature on offsite manufacturing (OSM), such debates are lacking and some studies conflate different components of research methodologies such as research design, methods, data sources, data types, and analytical techniques. This study examines the components of research methodologies reported in the OSM literature and how they compare with the established relationships between the key components of research methodologies. We analyse 74 articles on OSM sampled from 26 journals and find that quantitative methods, case studies, primary data, bibliometric database and modelling are the most preferred methodological approaches. The methodological components reported also cohere with established relationships between components of research methodology, other than the relationship between research methods and data sources. The findings reveal a growing hybridisation of research designs, data sources and analytical techniques, which suggests that methodological plurality is emerging in the OSM literature. This re-echoes concerns regarding the dominance of quantitative methods and the limited use of theory in CEM research, and consequently highlights the need for diversity in methodologies to expand knowledge boundaries.

Ekeskär, Andreas; Havenvid,  Malena I.; Karrbom Gustavsson, Tina; Eriksson, Per Erik

doi: 10.1080/01446193.2021.2012815pmid: N/A

Abstract As a part of supply chain management (SCM) initiatives to improve performance and productivity in construction projects, the use of construction logistics setups (CLSs) operated by third-party logistics (TPL) providers have increased. CLSs are often used in complex multi-project contexts, such as urban development districts, where extensive coordination of actors, resources, and activities is needed. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to investigate how main contractors engage in horizontal relationships with each other when coordinating activities and resources within and across projects in a multi-project context, and to investigate what role a TPL provider assumes when engaging in relationships with main contractors in a multi-project context. The findings are based on a case study of an urban development district with a mandatory TPL-operated CLS, and we apply the industrial network approach. In this multi-project context, the main contractors engage in coopetitive relationships, coordinating activities and resources within and across projects. The TPL provider coordinates actors, resources, and activities, facilitating smoother production by managing logistics and mediating coopetitive relationships. This can be understood as a multi-project coordination role and extends the role SCM can play in construction. In that role, a TPL provider can minimise tensions between coopetitive actors across a multitude of horizontal relationships and projects.

Svensson, Ingrid; Gluch, Pernilla

doi: 10.1080/01446193.2021.2014063pmid: N/A

Abstract Public property owners currently face a great backlog of renovation work at the same time as there is a need to build new, increase cost-efficiency, and comply with new environmental regulations on energy efficiency. To manage these challenges many public property owners have initiated change processes to develop new strategic ways of working with their properties, often aligned with a project portfolio approach. This involves a quite radical shift of practices in these organizations, which requires individuals to engage in institutional work. Recent studies have highlighted how institutional work is shared between humans and objects. To increase understanding of objects’ role in institutional work through which public property owners develop new practices that support a holistic, long-term, and sustainable property management, we analyzed observational data of strategy project meetings in three Swedish public property owner organizations. Findings show how objects have an active role in institutional work through acts of attacking, justifying, and/or safeguarding to maintain, create and/or disrupt institutions. Objects take on multiple roles and both unite and divide human actors as well as evoke emotions that guide actions. Three types of agency are highlighted: relational, discursive, and emotional. Increased knowledge on the role of objects in institutional work and how objects (can) influence human agency assists actors in making better-informed decisions in strategic change processes.

Järvenpää, Anna-Therése; Eriksson, Per Erik; Larsson, Johan

doi: 10.1080/01446193.2021.2014064pmid: N/A

Abstract Using a proper control system is vital to ensure that project delivery is satisfactory for the client. Prior research has identified relationship history as a potentially vital contingency factor in organizational control, but there is a lack of research on how relationship history affects how different control systems function in project-based contexts. In the Swedish infrastructure market, increased demand has resulted in a need for increased supply capacity. This has spurred new entrants that have no relationship history with the major client, the Swedish Transport Administration. The purpose is therefore to compare how the client’s control systems function in construction projects with familiar (known to the client) and unfamiliar (new to the client) contractors. The case study involves 32 interviews conducted in six infrastructure projects, three with unfamiliar contractors. Findings show that relationship history heavily influences how the control systems function, especially bureaucratic and clan control. The new contractors are unaccustomed with the client’s extensive use of bureaucratic control and perceive it as less suitable in design-build contracts. Furthermore, the lack of relationship history reduces the opportunity to use clan control from the beginning of a project, due to unfamiliarity with both the client and the control system.

Styhre, Alexander; Brorström, Sara; Gluch, Pernilla

doi: 10.1080/01446193.2021.2018719pmid: N/A

Abstract Urban development projects are based on both calculative practices, in order to render investments in new housing profitable, and on a broader assessment of the value of amenities, qualities associated with housing units such as access to parks and shopping facilities, while not directly being included in presumptive buyers’ prices or rents but still affecting the prices or rents paid because amenities affect market demand. This condition is particularly cumbersome in low-income city districts, and/or in city districts with “negative” amenities, such as visible street crime and a substandard quality of schooling. A study of an urban development project in a “particularly socially vulnerable” city district in Sweden shows how municipally-owned real estate companies and private construction companies need to collaborate with authorities (e.g. the police) and municipal boards (e.g. the education board) to advocate investment in amenities. In order to increase housing stock evaluations, local housing market attractiveness, and the housing welfare of residents in blighted city districts, urban development projects must include, in substantive ways, a variety of perspectives, competencies, and formal decision-making authorities.