Hugill, D J (2001) An examination of project management team meetings in railway construction. PhD thesis, University of Manchester, UK.
Abstract
The research for this thesis originated in an investigation of Bion's psychoanalytical model of behaviour in groups, which claimed to show the operation of three 'basic assumption' states: 'dependency', 'pairing, 'fight-flight'. Drawing on a literature review, the model was initially inspected to permit its deployment in the setting of a management team on a civil engineering project. The findings from this phase of the research revealed that the 'basic assumptions' are founded upon phenomena which share similarities with Freud's 'unconscious'. Further examination has concluded that the model is unsuitable as a means of understanding behaviour in a group, since crucially, it is limited to furnishing 'description' or 'interpretation', rather than explication. Whilst 'reviewing the literature, a number of 'interventions' using Bion's formulation were considered, and a conclusion is drawn that their attention to the rigours of the scientific process, leave a number of important questions unanswered. As a consequence of this inspection, a different approach to the empirical component of the project was undertaken, utilising 'ethnomethodology', an orientation in sociology drawing upon Wittgenstein's philosophy founded on 'grammar'. This approach necessitates the making of an exact, real-world, contemporaneous account, requiring the researcher's presence in the setting. Overcoming the sensitivities such an approach evokes requires a degree of negotiation; details of how the project progressed this phase of the research are included. After successfully negotiating access to the setting, the fieldwork has been used to obtain an audio record of meetings, and this data has been transcribed. This material is fundamentally 'episodic' in nature, and three episodes are presented in the thesis, further broken down into 'colloquies' for explicatory convenience. Analysis reveals the importance of 'topical coherence' as the means by which attendees conduct the business of a meeting. And it is the principle vehicle upon which 'speaking-during' can be made understandable to the conduct of a scientific investigation.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | sociology; civil engineering; negotiation; civil engineer; ethnomethodology |
| Index terms: | negotiation, ethnomethodology, presence, investigation, sociology, inspection, railway construction, negotiating, coherence, drawing, project management team, literature review, philosophy, civil engineer |
| Subjects: | social theory, civil engineering, research methods, philosophical studies, quality assurance, conflict resolution, human factors and perception, profession, data collection methods, data analysis and analytics, environmental science, technical documentation |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Stakeholder Management, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Quality Management, Sustainability, Engineering Principles |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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