Oliveira, Otávio José de (2005) Management model for small building design firms. PhD thesis, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.
Abstract
Building design is known to be one of the main aspects in obtaining competitive advantage in the building sector. Because of this, the organizational environment where design development takes place – the design firm – must offer the ideal conditions for this development. Nevertheless, design firms, specially the smaller ones, have particular characteristics that limit their performance, like shortage of financial, human and technological resources, high dependence on the entrepreneurship and leadership characteristics of their owners, the owners split their time in technical and managerial activities, and in general they do not know the key management techniques available. According to this, the main purpose of this thesis is the proposition of a management model specifically developed for small building design firms, aligned with their needs and particularities. The theoretical referential was elaborated aiming to furnish the necessary foundation to the field research conducted, allowing the researcher to know and understand the particularities of small companies, the management models available and the main characteristics of the building design process. The field research was conducted with a qualitative approach through the analysis of four case studies in small building design firms acting mainly in São Paulo City. The data collection involved many sources of evidence: personal interviews, observation and analysis of documents. The proposed model includes guidance to the management of the core processes and activities of small building design firms, such as: organizational structure; strategic planning; planning and control of design process; costs management; sales management; information systems; human resources management; services added to the design; and performance evaluation.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Melhado, Silvio Burrattino |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building construction; design firms; design process; management |
| Index terms: | information system, performance evaluation, human resource, organizational environment, evidence, documents, building construction, interview, organizational structure, design process, design development, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, qualitative approach, owner, competitive advantage, building design, design firm, case study |
| Subjects: | market analysis, building construction, design process, research methods, architectural design, practitioner, evaluation and assessment methods, information systems, sociology, professional development, performance measurement, management, design methods, data collection methods, business |
| Topics: | Quality Management, Organizational Design, Human Resources, Digital Applications, Design Practice, Construction Technology, Stakeholder Management, Roles and Professions, Information Management, Research Practice, Business Strategy |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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