Communication behaviour during management and design team meetings: a comparison of group interaction

Abstract

Although a few studies have investigated the communication behaviour of construction professionals this research represents the first attempt to model the construction team's interaction in live project meetings. Using the established Bales interaction process analysis (IPA) method, both task and relational interaction were recorded and a model of group communication was produced. A total of 36 meetings were observed from 10 construction projects and the data aggregated to provide a single profile of the groups' interaction. The construction meetings' interaction is compared to previous research undertaken in other contexts. Differences were found between the interaction patterns of work, social and academic groups. Typical of the interaction previously observed in work groups, the participants in construction meetings use high levels of task-based interaction and low levels of socio-emotional interaction. The adversarial environment often associated with construction was not found, indeed the level of negative emotion and critical discussion was so low that it could be suggested that problems may pass unchallenged.Communication, group dynamics, design, management, teams,

Nigeria’s construction industry: barriers to effective communication

“…In the traditional procurement process, project teams are formed on an ad-hoc basis. Gorse and Emmitt (2007) found that 'work environment' and 'working relationship' among project teams has an influence on the effectiveness of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 (Goodwin, 1993;Bowles et al, 2001;Stein et al, 2005).…”

Designing for construction workers’ occupational health and safety: a case study of socio-material complexity

“…As a consequence, in the state of Victoria it has been common practice for design teams to assess and attempt to design out OHS risks relating to the operation stage of a facility but not consider the health and safety of construction workers in the same risk management process. Gorse and Emmitt (2007) identify the need to investigate social interaction and communication in 'live' construction projects. In-keeping with this recommendation, the data collection approach adopted involved a number of different methods including: (i) direct observation of project team interactions; (ii) interviews with project actors; and (iii) inspection of artefacts, such as aspects of the physical worksite and project documentation.…”

Managing projects from a client perspective: The concept of the meetings-flow approach

“…For example, to enable and facilitate participation in sharing inspiration, leveraging expertise and consolidating information, group or teamwork in all kinds of projects is often proposed in meetings (Gallivan and Keil, 2003;Gorse and Emmitt, 2007;Hass, 2006;Wenger et al, 2002). As Orlikowski and Yates (1994) have observed, meetings are also commonly used by organizations to handle ad-hoc types of codified group or team actions.…”

“…This is where the importance of conveniently timed and wellplanned meetings enters into the discussion. In all business activities, meetings are an important instrument for group work (Gorse and Emmitt, 2007;Hass, 2006;Wenger et al, 2002). They are the important venue where various stakeholders and parties meet to communicate and collaborate on a project's development.…”