Hartmann, T (2008) A grassroots model of decision support system implementations by construction project teams. PhD thesis, Stanford University, USA.
Abstract
This thesis explains grassroots implementations of decision support systems by project teams - implementations driven by the members of a project team working at the operational level - from the perspectives of the three main stakeholders that are involved in managing the life-cycle of a decision support system: project team members, technology managers of project-based companies, and developers of decision support systems. Using ethnographic data from a large infrastructure construction project in New York City the thesis shows that the project team on this project was only able to use a decision support system efficiently when the members of the project team were driving the decision support system implementation in a grassroots process. The project team members mutually structurated the technology and their knowledge throughout the grassroots implementation. They influenced the technical reality of the decision support system while at the same time being influenced by the technical reality of the system. Building on the findings of the case study, the thesis, deductively integrates existing work that can explain parts of grassroots processes into a coherent theoretical model. The model explains how members working at the operational level of a project team make sense about a newly introduced decision support system and decide to utilize it in their local context. In this way, the thesis applies social sense making theory to decision support systems implementations and positions the grassroots technology implementation model into organizational choice theory, organizational multi-level theory, and organizational change theory. Based on the theoretical model the thesis recommends that technology managers need to work closely together with local project teams during the implementation of decision support systems to support grassroots processes, instead of trying to push down standardized technology solutions through hierarchical structures. Additionally, the thesis proposes a project-centric research and software development methodology to inform the design of decision support systems that project teams need to implement in a grassroots fashion.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Fischer, M |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | decision support; organizational change; project team; construction project; infrastructure construction; developer; stakeholders; case study |
| Index terms: | project team, implementation, construction project team, case study, construction project, methodology, infrastructure construction, decision support, software development, organizational change, manager, New York |
| Subjects: | project delivery, contractual arrangements, practitioner, business, data collection methods, decision analysis, Geography, production management, civil engineering, research methods, software systems |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Organizational Design, Geographical Context, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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