Watts, G (2024) Authenticity and negativism: Social value in UK construction. In: Thomson, C (ed.) Proceedings of 40th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2-4 September 2024, London South Bank University, UK.
Abstract
Social value engagement in UK construction procurement provides contractors with a competitive edge. Arguably this serves to force contractor social value action. Whilst this is seemingly of benefit to the social value agenda and wider societal needs, the problem exists that there is gap in current research around the impact the perceptions of contractor leadership have on the social value delivered. The aim of this research is to understand if altruistic main contractor social value strategies result in greater social value activity than those strategies driven purely by procurement success. Sixteen interviews are conducted across four main contractors. These include a member of the leadership team from each contractor, with twelve of the interviews conducted from across the different contractor’s social value delivery teams. The findings reveal social value authenticity and negativism exists. The leadership of some contractors see social value as a means of procurement success only, which filters down to the delivery team, resulting in minimal social value delivery. Contractor leadership with authentic social value intentions is easily identifiable by the social value delivery teams resulting in broader social value benefits achieved.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | procurement; narrative analysis; business responsibility; leadership |
| Index terms: | main contractor, interview, strategy, narrative, construction procurement, social value |
| Subjects: | contractual arrangements, data collection methods, practitioner, sociology, management, qualitative and interpretive research |
| Topics: | Urban Studies, Roles and Professions, Procurement, Business Strategy, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
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