| 1. |
- Sherratt, Fred, et al.
(författare)
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Challenging complacency in construction management research : the case of PPPs
- 2020
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Ingår i: Construction Management and Economics. - : ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. - 0144-6193 .- 1466-433X. ; 38:12, s. 1086-1100
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are joint ventures in which the private sector works in partnership with government bodies to deliver public sector projects with the intention to deliver them more quickly, efficiently and with better value for money. They are also one of the most contentious project delivery mechanisms to have been mobilised in recent decades. Research has demonstrated the lack of realised value within many such projects, yet construction management academics continue to examine ways of increasing, implementing and optimising this approach in practice, even encouraging its adoption worldwide despite growing social and political dissatisfaction. Here, we go beyond what we see as myopic construction management perspectives, placing our body of work firmly within wider economic, political and social contexts. We challenge uncritical academic compliance with a process that demonstrably contributes to economic inequalities, opportunism and exploitation. We confront the lack of criticality in construction management research of PPPs, and call for construction management academics to broaden their research focus and engage in more robust critique and analysis of construction systems, as they are realised in practice.
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| 2. |
- Sherratt, Fred, et al.
(författare)
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Organizing construction work : a digital and cooperative way forwards for micro-projects
- 2022
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Ingår i: Building Research & Information. - : ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. - 0961-3218 .- 1466-4321. ; 50:5, s. 559-573
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Digital Construction Cooperative, or DigiConCo-Op, is a digital 'virtual main contractor' platform, able to support the collaboration of local micro-SMEs and SMEs (MSMEs) in the delivery of micro-projects. The design of the platform reflects and is intended to instantiate the theory and practice of cooperativism. Cooperativism is an organizational, economic and contractual model which assumes that humans work best when working together collaboratively and in contexts were they share ownership of the enterprise at hand. In Cooperatives, management responsibilities, profits and risks are fully shared between those doing the work. Following the theoretical detailing of the DigiConCo-Op platform, its fit with practice is explored through interviews with n = 25 MSMEs as to the potential benefits and challenges these future users perceived within the platform, and cooperative working generally. Findings show that there is an appetite for construction cooperatives among construction MSMEs, and for supporting digital technology, but also a concern for how responsibility and risk are shared in practice, and whether membership can be open without some form of pre-existing personal relationship.
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| 3. |
- Ivory, Chris, et al.
(författare)
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Getting caught between discourse(s) : hybrid choices in technology use at work
- 2020
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Ingår i: New technology, work and employment. - : WILEY. - 0268-1072 .- 1468-005X. ; 35:1, s. 80-96
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Winner (1977, Autonomous Technology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 77), in defense of technology determinism, cautioned against 'throwing out the baby with the methodological bathwater'. His concern was that in so doing STS research would underplay, or be unable to account for, the effects that technology change does have on society. We similarly now find that powerful explanatory concepts like 'structural-discourse' have been largely expunged from the contemporary STS analytical lexicon; with consequences, we believe, for our ability as researchers to interpret and explain the rapid change we see in contemporary work places. In this paper we make the case for the continued use of a strong structural-discourse theory alongside other emergent forms of discourse. We show how workers, responding to conflicting and different types of discourse, produce varying hybrid responses-actions that react to and combine elements of emergent and structural discourses. Our work considers the implications of this finding for contemporary STS theory.
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| 4. |
- Sherratt, Fred, et al.
(författare)
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Managing "a little bit unsafe" : complexity, construction safety and situational self-organising
- 2019
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Ingår i: Engineering Construction and Architectural Management. - : EMERALD GROUP PUBLISHING LTD. - 0969-9988 .- 1365-232X. ; 26:11, s. 2519-2534
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose The purpose of this paper is to unpack the shared understandings of safety held by workers on large UK construction sites using a complexity lens, and so provide empirical support for the inclusion of situational self-organising within construction site safety management systems (SMS). Design/methodology/approach A social constructionist epistemology supports the discourse analysis of talk (semi-structured interview and conversational), text (SMS and documentation) and visual (safety related signage) data collection from five large (+20 pound m) UK construction sites. Findings Construction workers readily understand safety to be an emergent phenomenon with the complex system that is the construction site. Contemporary safety management approaches struggle with this complexity, yet there is the potential to mobilise situational self-organising on sites to improve safety in practice. Research limitations/implications - Epistemological foundations mean no claim is made to generalisability as perceived by traditional positivistic parameters. The data are limited to large (+20m) pound UK construction sites; however, underlying construction management systems are common to the industry as a whole and can find fit with practitioner experiences and other empirical academic work from both the UK and other countries. Practical implications - Situational self-organising of safety management within the construction workforce is proposed as a key contribution to a relevant, dynamic and effective SMS. Originality/value Data are analysed from a social constructionist perspective and considered through a complexity lens. This approach unpacks these data in an original way to seek synergy with existing adaptive safety approaches, specifically situational self-organising and make recommendations for practice.
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