A cross-culture analysis of construction practice through knowledge events

It has long been believed that culture causes differences in construction practice in different countries. Few practical cross cultural studies have been conducted in construction due to the complexity, richness, abstractness and subtlety of national differences. Culture is a disputed concept whose meaning depends on the context of its use. Knowledge-Event Management (KEM), using audio diaries to capture knowledge events and debriefing to analyse and transfer knowledge, has been chosen to enquiry into construction practice in different countries as it accesses deep knowledge in practice. It is proposed that those real-life knowledge events contain rich contents from which not only the embedded tacit knowledge can be extracted and then shared but also some national differences in cultural pattern of learning and practicing may be detected. This paper presents two typical knowledge events collected from construction professionals in Britain and China respectively and uses a cross-culture lens to identify differences in people’s thinking and learning as well as their practice in construction. The findings present evidence of different national construction practices and link these to cultural differences. This will surface learning to assist international projects and for the learning of international students.