Boyd, D and Wild, A (1999) Construction projects as organization development. In: Hughes, W (ed.) Proceedings of 15th Annual ARCOM Conference, 15-17 September 1999, Liverpool, UK.
Abstract
The conventional wisdom about the role of clients and the re-engineering of construction projects around client satisfaction that has emerged from the Latham and Egan Reports is challenged. It is argued that the present conventional wisdom is misleading as it assumes a stable alignment of goals among the project stakeholders from the inception of projects. Hence 'solutions to the problems of construction' become focussed on technical rationality and methods. By focussing on the set of organizations involved in construction, it is shown that all the parties necessarily change as a result of the project; their interactions generate a dynamic evolution of project goals and methods. Projects are shown to produce under-boundedness in client organizations which, if not managed, can induce an environment of failure in the project. These organizational changes and developments occur regardless of the initial intentions of the parties and are shown to be comparable to Organizational Development. It is concluded that project management requires skills in facilitating organizational development.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | boundedness; change; client; organizational development; uncertainty |
| Index terms: | client organization, organizational change, Latham, rationality, interaction, project management, construction project, evolution, client satisfaction, organizational development, project stakeholder |
| Subjects: | business, client relations, environmental science, project management theory and practice, production management, decision-making and reasoning, behavioral psychology, sociology, industry policy reports |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Research Practice, Project Management, Sustainability, Governance, Stakeholder Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here