Viking, A and Stehn, L (2015) Exploring Swedish local planning authorities'perceptions of standardized housing construction. In: Raiden, A and Aboagye-Nimo, E (eds.) Proceedings of 31st Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2015, Lincoln, UK.
Abstract
We explore how Swedish Local Planning Authorities perceive standardized housing construction and attempt to use an ideal type typology of institutional logics to describe how Local Planning Authorities make use of the multiple institutional logics available to them. Increased standardization in Swedish housing construction has been suggested as a means to meet the growing need for housing with reasonable rent levels. However, housing contractors that use standardization and repetition of processes and components claim that the variation of requirements set by Local Planning Authorities prevents them from taking full advantage of their standardization. A recent empirical study of standardized housing contractors' perceptions suggests that Local Requirement Setting, the requirement setting practices of Local Planning Authorities, are interpretational responses to a lack of familiarity with standardized housing construction. Yet, Local Planning Authorities' perceptions of standardized housing construction have never previously been explored. Empirical material for this on-going study was collected through in-depth exploratory interviews with local planning officers from three municipalities situated in Swedish population growth regions. Findings suggest that Local Planning Authorities perceive potential benefits with standardization, but ultimately expect standardized housing concepts to adapt to local standards for processes and products. In projects with high ambitions for architectural quality standardized housing concepts need to be highly flexible. Conversely, highly standardized housing concepts benefit from project ambitions that favour reasonable rent levels. Therefore, Local Requirement Setting is indicative of a mismatch between the Local Planning Authority's project ambitions and the standardized housing contractor's degree of product standardization.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | ideal type; institutional logics; local planning; local requirement setting; standardization |
| Index terms: | standardization, variation, empirical study, population, residential construction, mismatch, municipality, housing, architectural quality, institutional logic, interview, local planning |
| Subjects: | engineering problems, construction type, data collection methods, administrative law, quality assurance, demography, contractual condition, urban design, performance measurement, theoretical framing, research methods, construction integration |
| Topics: | Contract Administration, Urban Studies, Legal Issues, Quality Management, Construction Technology, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, 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