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"Shared sense of purposefulness": a new concept to understand the practice of coordinating design in construction

Çıdık, MS; Boyd, D; (2020) "Shared sense of purposefulness": a new concept to understand the practice of coordinating design in construction. Construction Management and Economics , 38 (1) pp. 18-31. 10.1080/01446193.2019.1593471. Green open access

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Abstract

Construction management literature sees the collective task of coordinating design as being about the “‘integration’” of “fragmented” discipline-specific design tasks/outputs, thus overlooking the important role of social interactions. This is not only conceptually problematic but also presents a practical management problem. As a response, a practice-based approach, which relies on a “becoming” ontology, is adopted for a practical explanation of design coordination for more effective design management. The adopted methodology suggests that design develops as a result of unfolding (path-dependent) individual actions and interdisciplinary interactions. Based on this, the concept of a “shared sense of purposefulness” is proposed to refer to the temporary and precarious organizational state of a design team in which each of the interacting team members has achieved a state of purposefulness to resume individual action. Hence, design coordination in construction is redefined as continuously re-establishing and maintaining “a shared sense of purposefulness”. The concept’s usefulness for understanding the practice of design coordination is demonstrated using data collected from a project in the UK. The discussion enables fresh insights into the everyday operation of design coordination. It is concluded that the proposed conception paves a way forward both for the research and practice in construction design management.

Type: Article
Title: "Shared sense of purposefulness": a new concept to understand the practice of coordinating design in construction
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/01446193.2019.1593471
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1080/01446193.2019.1593471
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
Keywords: Design coordination, design management, sensemaking, organizational analysis, practice-based study, construction
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > The Bartlett Sch of Const and Proj Mgt
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10082928
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