Bröchner, J; Josephson, P E and Kadefors, A (2002) Swedish construction culture, quality management and collaborative practice. Building Research & Information, 30(6), pp. 392-400. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
In many countries, the construction sector has adopted principles of quality management and introduced less adversarial, more durable market relations during the 1990s. The Swedish construction sector is investigated with emphasis on the implications of the local culture. Construction in a cold country on the periphery of Europe is affected by the merger of traditions of craftsmanship and military engineering. Centralized state control and weak professional identities have been influential. However, social and cultural traits reflected in a national management style (based on low power distance, loose control and low uncertainty avoidance) can be traced in the development of specific quality and collaboration practices in Swedish construction. Egalitarian distrust of both elitism and strong professions, expressed as a tendency for two parties to settle disputes without referring to neutral third parties, has also been identified. Some implications for adapting Sweden's construction culture of quality management and dispute resolution to a larger international framework are proposed.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | business systems; collaboration; construction business system; construction culture; dispute resolution; quality systems; Sweden; Swedish construction |
| Index terms: | Europe, management style, Sweden, merger, dispute, collaborative practice, military engineering, identity, profession, collaboration, construction sector, resolution, quality management |
| Subjects: | business, institututions, dispute resolution, conflict resolution, sociology, industry analysis, quality assurance, collaborative management, management, physical geography and landforms, Geography, infrastructure engineering |
| Topics: | Organizational Design, Quality Management, Human Resources, Legal Issues, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Business Strategy |
| 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