Individual Learning in Construction Projects: Professions and their Approaches

New materials, use of sophisticatedtechnologies and increased customerdemands, in combination with growingcompetition among construction companies,have led to a high degree of specialization. Forsuccessful integration of the differentprofessional specialists, there is a need forshared learning between project co-workers.Based on twenty eight interviews in sixdifferent Swedish construction projects, thispaper illustrates strategies for individual andshared learning, among different actors andacross various organizational boundaries. Theresults indicate that personal networks are themost common source of learning for allprofessions. While clients, architects, anddesigners also engage in reading andattending courses, site managers and workersare less engaged in these activities.Experimenting and organizing for learningappear to be underutilized strategies by allprofessions. This leads to the conclusion thatattempts to increase learning have to addressthe differences in learning behaviors of thevarious groups. Further, focus onexperimenting and organizing for learning is apossibility to change the learning behaviorfrom learning as a consequence of problemsto learning for future improvement

Individual Learning in Construction Projects: Professions and their Approaches

New materials, use of sophisticated technologies and increased customer demands, in combination with growing competition among construction companies, have led to a high organizational boundaries. The results indicate that personal networks are the most common source of learning for all professions. While clients, architects, and designers also engage in reading and attending courses, site managers and workers are less engaged in these activities. Experimenting and organizing for learning appear to be underutilized strategies by all professions. This leads to the conclusion that attempts to increase learning have to address the differences in learning behaviours of the various groups. Further, focus on experimenting and organizing for learning is a possibility to change the learning behaviour from learning as a consequence of problems to learning for future improvement.degree of specialization. For successful integration of the different professional specialists, there is a need for shared learning between project co-workers. Based on twenty eight interviews in six different Swedish construction projects, this paper illustrates strategies for individual and shared learning, among different actors and across variou

The valuation of housing in low-amenity and low purchasing power city districts: social and economic value entangled by default

Urban development projects are based on both calculative practices, in order to render investments in new housing profitable, and on a broader assessment of the value of amenities, qualities associated with housing units such as access to parks and shopping facilities, while not directly being included in presumptive buyers’ prices or rents but still affecting the prices or rents paid because amenities affect market demand. This condition is particularly cumbersome in low-income city districts, and/or in city districts with “negative” amenities, such as visible street crime and a substandard quality of schooling. A study of an urban development project in a “particularly socially vulnerable” city district in Sweden shows how municipally-owned real estate companies and private construction companies need to collaborate with authorities (e.g. the police) and municipal boards (e.g. the education board) to advocate investment in amenities. In order to increase housing stock evaluations, local housing market attractiveness, and the housing welfare of residents in blighted city districts, urban development projects must include, in substantive ways, a variety of perspectives, competencies, and formal decision-making authorities

Leadership under construction: A qualitative exploration of leadership processes in construction companies in Sweden.

Leadership has increasingly been advocated as a potent organizing practice, linked positively to several performance dimensionsas well as successful organizational development and change. Despite these alleged promises, the specific characteristics of leadership proc-esses as they unfold in a construction context have not been fully captured by construction researchers. This paper is predicated on anidentified lack of methodological richness underlying leadership studies in construction. While a growing number of contributions havequantitatively tested the ideas and models of leadership scholars, few have qualitatively explored the experiences and interpretations ofthe actual people that practice leadership in their daily work in construction companies. Drawing on a rich qualitative interview study, thispaper analyzes open-ended stories about leadership in the largest construction companies in Sweden. The findings show how leadership styleshave been shaped to align with traditional work and organizing principles, but also how they, by the same token, pose a seemingly unresolvedtension with change initiatives that seek to reorganize to improve organizational performance. Altogether, these findings indicate that there aregrounds to question the transformative potential of leadership in construction companies, as practiced today. The paper concludes by outliningthe practical implications of these findings, together with some analytical generalizations that can serve as pointers for a strengthened lead-ership agenda in construction research, one that is characterized by an increased methodological richness and accentuated focus on thecontext-specific aspects of leadershi

Trust versus contracts in corporate governance: Agency theory, contractual theory, and the fortification of shareholder welfare governance

Agency theory, despite its influential normative prescriptions, has been subject to a long-standing critique from management scholars for being theoretically inconsistent and empirically unsubstantiated. The article examines how agency theory is rooted in contractarian theory of the firm that by and large renders extant corporate law irrelevant and instead emphasizes the auxiliary benefits of the market (i.e. financial markets). What is addressed as ‘the market for corporate control’, based on the ceaseless pricing of the shares and bonds issued by public firms, is portrayed as a more effective mechanism for disciplining managers and monitoring the corporate system than corporate legislation and court ruling. This argument, derived from elementary neoclassic economic theory, turns a blind eye to the historical roots of corporate law and overstate the ability of the, e.g., shareholders to assess managerial decision-making on basis of information available in the market. Ultimately, agency theorists and contractarians, in their pursuit of free-market capitalism, seek to disconnect the corporate system from the authority and regulatory control of the state