Interactional perspective on environmental communication in construction projects

Gluch, Pernilla; Räisänen, Christine

doi:10.1080/09613210802632849

Cited by 41 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…Guy and Shove (2000), studying energy-efficiency in buildings needs a sociological approach that considers aspects such as roles, responsibilities and strategies. However, so far little attention has also been paid to built environment professionals' knowledge, communicative skills and how their actions relate to and influence various norms, systems, structures and established conventions (Gluch, 2009;Gluch and Räisänen, 2009;Guy and Shove, 2000;Whyte and Sexton, 2011). Moreover, Bordass and Leaman (2013) even question if built environment professionals have appropriate knowledge and skills needed to meet the challenges of sustainability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The value of communicative skills for developing an energy strategy

Ludvig

Stenberg

Gluch

2013

Building Research & Information

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Based on a case study including field observations of 13 meetings, various documents, and 25 interviews, this paper presents an account of how a public client organisation handled an a political directive on energy efficiency in buildings. The paper explores the value of communication skills of built environment professionals during a strategic change process. Taking an interpretative approach, we account for talk and interaction between mainly a senior engineer (energy expert), the management team and officials. It demonstrates how the political directive led to a politically set ambiguous energy target, which in turn was framed, contextualised and anchored within the organisation. It shows how this change process was shaped by involved actors' personal ambitions and ability to convince others that they may gain from the changes needed to meet the energy target, i.e. use of discursive competence. The focus on the role of a senior engineer, rather than top management, provides a novel perspective on how strategies develop in organisations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The value of communicative skills for developing an energy strategy

Ludvig

Stenberg

Gluch

2013

Building Research & Information

Self Cite

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“…No explicit consideration is paid to how nonhuman technologies, like intranet systems, might actually be involved in shaping the meaning of the expert identities of certain practitioners such as the environmental officers. Nevertheless their analysis does offer an implicit consideration of how nonhumans can make a difference to construction practice, as Gluch and Räisänen (2009) explain how mediating tools help decouple construction projects from the permanent organizations espousing environmental expertise.…”

Section: Humanism and Construction Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here the politics of expertise is not only explainable in terms of the legitimizing action of professional bodies and class structures (Friedson, 2001;Knapp, 1999;Larson, 1977) the minutiae of linguistic rules (Boudeau's (2013), or the social interaction of human actors (Gluch and Räisänen (2009), Dossick and Neff (2011), but also the on-going boundary work around which human agency is differentiated from its Other (cf. Cooren et al 2006).…”

Section: Haraway's (1991) Cyborgmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a similar study to Gluch and Räisänen (2009), Dossick and Neff (2011) draw upon grounded theory to explain how BIM models shape the interactions among building design and construction professionals. Again, nonhumans feature quite strongly in their account but only as 'communication tools' (p85) that are more or less effective conduits for human intents and designs.…”

Section: Humanism and Construction Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gluch and Räisänen (2009), for instance, draw upon interactionist social theories to show how the expertise of environment consultants is received within civil engineering projects. Nonhumans do feature in their account, but only as 'mediation tools' that are 'used to convey or appropriate a message' (p166) between humans actors.…”

Section: Humanism and Construction Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Rethinking construction expertise with posthumanism

Sage

2016

Construction Management and Economics

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Expertise is commonly understood to be a distinct, even defining, aspect of being human -an attribute related to our efficacies to come to know and influence the, mostly nonhuman, world around us. In construction, expertise is commonly defined as the acquisition of skill and knowledge related to new technical processes, organizational routines, health and safety codes, even cultural norms. Despite the development of rule-following 'expert systems' in construction and beyond, the proposal that nonhuman technologies and artefacts can share our expertise is thus to be regarded with doubt: humans are human because of their lived expertise to undertake tasks faster and better than machines and other nonhumans. Increasingly, however, this anthropocentric view of expertise can be challenged by a 'posthuman turn' that is gathering pace across the social sciences and humanities. In this paper I evaluate, via the work of four seminal posthuman thinkers, the distinct, and varied, contribution that posthumanism might make to how we understand notions of construction expertise. In so doing I draw upon fictional examples of construction practices to illustrate the challenge and theoretical and practical opportunities in rethinking construction expertise via posthumanism.

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Structuring of Temporary Multi-Organizations: Contingency Theory in the Building Sector

Lizarralde

Blois

Latunova

2011

Project Management Journal

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The appropriate management of construction projects presupposes a clear comprehension of the structure of the temporary multi‐organization (TMO); however, most of the work on the structuring of TMOs has concentrated either on procurement strategies or the structure of individual organizations. Current approaches, therefore, do not fully consider the roles of all project stakeholders, the informal communications, and the complexity of the client organization. Instead, we argue that the contingency theory contributes to the understanding of the structuring of TMOs. The analysis of 27 recent construction projects allows us to identify two contingency factors and patterns of configuration of the TMO.

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Interactional perspective on environmental communication in construction projects

Cited by 41 publications

References 22 publications

The value of communicative skills for developing an energy strategy

The value of communicative skills for developing an energy strategy

Rethinking construction expertise with posthumanism

Structuring of Temporary Multi-Organizations: Contingency Theory in the Building Sector

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