Çıdık, M S (2020) Project managing the social value of built assets: A call for a focus on value manifestation. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 36th Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-8 September 2020, Online Event, UK.
Abstract
'Social value' has long been a consideration for public project appraisal based on economic approaches. Such approaches mainly consider the monetary equivalents of social costs and benefits for the comparison of different investment alternatives. On the other hand, policy on public procurement all around the world increasingly pushes for 'realisation' of social value. However, there has been little research and academic debate in construction management literature regarding realisation of social value by the means of construction projects. One of the key questions that needs to be explored is what construction project management can, or should, do to actually achieve at the operational stage the social value envisaged at the appraisal stage. Exploring this question requires first a managerial definition of 'social value'. Hence, the present paper proposes 'social value' as a domain of construction project management. A conceptual discussion on 'social value' and its management is provided relying on a practice-theoretical perspective which assumes that value is realised in situated everyday practices. When seen from a practice-theoretical view, 'social value' is continuously in-making from the point it is articulated to the point it is realised during operational stage. This suggests that the social value of construction projects at the operational stage is the outcome of the ongoing socially-embedded (and intersubjective) negotiations between various stakeholders. Therefore, managing social value requires an awareness of the different social structures and interactions that dominate different stages of the project life-cycle, and interventions to bridge those. It is concluded that construction project management should develop a social strategy as well as social processes, in addition to technical and operational ones, in order to achieve at the operational stage the social value envisaged at the appraisal stage.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | definition; measurement; project management; social value; spatiality |
| Index terms: | strategy, interaction, social structure, built asset, appraisal, negotiation, project management, social process, construction project, public project, social value, construction project management |
| Subjects: | conflict resolution, asset management, sociology, communities and social development, behavioral psychology, management, factor and component analysis, social theory, production management, infrastructure engineering, project management theory and practice |
| Topics: | Stakeholder Management, Research Practice, Project Management, Engineering Principles, Business Strategy, Urban Studies |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
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