Nifa, F A A and Ahmed, V (2010) The role of organizational culture in construction partnering to produce innovation. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Construction firms are faced with problems with learning curve in projects, dissimilarities in organizational culture and business practices with other firms in temporary organizations and distrust in the traditional bidding process. The partnering strategy is being advocated by many literatures as the solution to the many problems in the construction industry. Various studies have collectively added to the current knowledge of known partnering factor, frameworks, possible outcomes and barriers to partnering. Several studies indicate the need for similar organizational culture for partnering organizations to ensure partnering success. This need can be heightened when partnering occurs between firms of varying sizes. However, there seem to be little effort on formulating an organizational cultural based framework for partnering. Apart from that, measure of success is rarely included within these frameworks. The measure is critical as to give the partnering firms an indication whether the partnering venture is succeeding or not, after all guidelines in the framework had been applied. This paper is based on the literature review for a research which aims to develop a new framework that meets the needs of organizational culture in partnering firms which would improve innovation, as a measure of partnering success. This paper proposes that when the elements of organizational culture are present and similar in partnering firms, the partnering effort have a greater chance of succeeding and producing improvements such as innovation in the construction industry. Accordingly, this paper gives a synthesis of literature review on the overview of partnering, the role of organizational culture and how it can help improve innovation in the construction industry. A review of available frameworks for partnering is also included, indicating the lack of focus on the element of organizational culture. By providing an in-depth understanding of the research area, this paper will be adding a significant knowledge to current partnering practices within the construction industry.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | innovation; organizational culture; partnering |
| Index terms: | construction industry, organizational culture, bidding, partnering, strategy, literature review, temporary organization, construction firm |
| Subjects: | organization, data analysis and analytics, bidding, organizational theory, management, industry analysis, partnership management, sociology |
| Topics: | Project Management, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Procurement, Stakeholder Management, Organizational Design |
| 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