Ahuja, S; Nikolova, N and Clegg, S (2020) Professional identity and anxiety in architect-client interactions. Construction Management and Economics, 38(7), pp. 589-602. ISSN 01446193
Abstract
Large-scale construction projects increasingly have powerful and knowledgeable clients as project owners with whom professionals, such as architects, must interact. In such contexts, clients may have a significant impact on the constitution of a coherent and stable professional identity. Based on qualitative interviews with 50 architects across four large multidisciplinary professional service firms (PSFs) located in Sydney, Australia, supplemented by ethnographic observations, this article explores how architects constitute their identity in interactions with clients. The findings led us to conceptualise professional–client interactions in terms of two overarching discursive strategies deployed by architects in attempts to manage clients that are powerful and knowledgeable: best for client and best for project. We illustrate the anxieties that architects experience and suggest that attempts to secure professional identity may result in (re)producing an enduring sense of anxiety with unintended consequences for project outcomes and organisational performance.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | anxiety; architects; clients; discourse; identity work; professional identity |
| Index terms: | project outcome, anxiety, construction project, unintended consequence, interview, architect, organizational performance, identity, professional service firm, Australia, strategy, owner, interaction |
| Subjects: | management, mental health and wellbeing, performance measurement, production management, behavioral psychology, sociology, project completion, data collection methods, organization, Geography, risk assessment, profession |
| Topics: | Project Management, Health and Safety, Business Strategy, Geographical Context, Quality Management, Stakeholder Management, Risk Management, Roles and Professions, Research Practice, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
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