Pirzadeh, Payam (2018) A social network perspective on design for construction safety. PhD thesis, RMIT University, Australia.
Abstract
The proactive practice of anticipating and 'designing out' work health and safety (WHS) risks at early project stages, known as safety in design, is well-recognised. Evidence from previous research also indicates that the effective interaction between design and construction participants is vital to make construction process knowledge accessible to design decision-makers. Nevertheless, effective communication still seems to be a problem in practice. This PhD study was undertaken to explore the way in which the interactions between design and construction decision-makers impact on the quality of design decisions and WHS outcomes. Social network analysis (SNA) has been applied to explore the patterns of interaction between project participants. Previous applications of SNA in construction have largely been cross-sectional and single-level in their focus, implicitly assuming a degree of simplicity and stability in the project context. The reality is, however, that the construction project context is complex and unpredictable. Decisions unfold and trade-offs are made at different organisational levels as participants negotiate solutions to emergent problems. At the same time, there are important interdependencies between the technical decisions and the social interactions that underpin them. In order to recognise these socio-technical complexities and interdependencies, a multilevel framework is implemented representing the design process as a socio-technical network. Using this approach, six case studies were conducted. In each case, the design process and its underlying interactions were explored and the characteristics of effective interaction during design decision-making were identified. In addition, the way that effective interaction contributes to the achievement of safety in design in construction projects was investigated. It was found that certain structural properties of communication networks between project participants were linked to better safety in design decision outcomes. The research evidence suggested that this effect can be attributable to an alignment between the information interdependencies of the design decisions and the communication patterns that underpin them. Through this PhD study, a realistic understanding of the role of information exchanges in supporting safety in design was facilitated. Moreover, implementation of the multilevel framework and analysis technique in this study, not applied in construction research to date, enabled a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the complexities and socio-technical interdependencies that characterise design decision-making. The findings of this study can be used to understand and proactively design, encourage and maintain interaction networks that support effective decision-making in the context of safety in design.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Lingard, Helen; Blismas, Nick and Aranda-Mena, Guillermo |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | communication; construction; multilevel; safety in design; social network analysis; work health and safety |
| Index terms: | interaction, implementation, social interaction, multilevel framework, design and construction, case study, socio-technical, construction safety, complexity, design decision, decision-making, construction process, construction project, evidence, social network analysis, social network, stability, information exchange, design process, health and safety, communication network |
| Subjects: | behavioral psychology, networking, building construction, health safety and environment, production management, structural engineering, research methods, contractual arrangements, evaluation and assessment methods, systems engineering, environmental health, sociology, decision analysis, design practice, data science, design methods, data collection methods, research design and methodology |
| Topics: | Health and Safety, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Risk Management, Procurement, Sustainability, Design Practice, Digital Applications, Site Management, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
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