Volker, L (2012) Procuring architectural services: Sensemaking in a legal context. Construction Management and Economics, 30(9), pp. 749-759. ISSN 1466433X
Abstract
Decision makers involved in selecting an architect for a building project in the public domain have to comply with European procurement regulations. The blend of the legal requirements and the subjective elements of architectural design creates a situation in which the legal rationale often clashes with the organizational sensemaking process that decision makers experience. Hence, being aware of the origin of these conflicts could have important managerial implications for the design of a tender process. A competition and a tender case were selected to collect data by observation, interviewing and document analysis. The incremental and iterative character of making sense of supply and demand and the implicit ways of aggregating value judgements in order to make a final procurement decision were found to be the main underlying decision processes in procuring architectural services. Being aware of these characteristics in the design of a tender process would significantly reduce the chance of conflictive situations.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | architectural design; client; decision making; public sector procurement; sensemaking |
| Index terms: | architectural design, decision-making, regulation, competition, sensemaking, public sector procurement, architect, architectural service, procurement decision, document analysis, decision process, supply and demand |
| Subjects: | design practice, practice management, market analysis, decision analysis, cognitive psychology, procurement strategy, political science, profession, contractual arrangements, data science |
| Topics: | Roles and Professions, Risk Management, Procurement, Governance, Research Practice, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
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