Unpacking Ontological Perspectives in CEM Research: Everything Is Biased

Abstract

Methodological debates are nothing new in construction engineering and management (CEM) research. However, when the consequences, and at times even the content, of such debates are considered, what often emerges is both a superficiality and inconsistency in the way research methodologies are understood, mobilized and used to judge the rigor and value of empirical work. CEM research seems reluctant to engage with the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge, or, at times, with any philosophy at all. This paper explores and considers the influence, or lack of influence, that ontological and epistemological positioning has on much of our CEM research, and what that indicates for the findings we generate. With an explicit focus on bias, and the approaches taken within a volume, 173 manuscripts, of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management are examined. We argue that multimethodological perspectives on a problem should be adopted where possible, able as they are to generate more holistic understandings and more comprehensive illuminations of phenomena in practice, and thereby support the development of a more mature CEM research discipline, both in terms of academic scholarship and relevance to practice.

Taking a new view for researching occupational safety in construction: site safety practice

“…Yet research of construction and its management (including occupational safety) has grown from the mulch of the engineering sciences, where concrete, steel and complicated calculations abound. It is therefore unsurprising that it is a highly ontologically realist and epistemologically positivistic space (Sherratt and Leicht 2020). Importantly, this dominant positivistic approach inherently limits understandings of the social and interactional aspects of occupational safety in this field, and thus the ability to inform effective interventions in practice.…”

“…Yet within such analyses, all too often no difference is made between the worker and the work, and they are both approached just the same: as something that can be objectively measured and controlled. Survey work and the generation of quantitative data to prove, or rather disprove, null hypotheses remain prominent (Sherratt and Leicht 2020), and where richer qualitative data is collected, much of that richness is subsequently lost it as is reduced through positivisticallygrounded analyses that continue to dominate (Zhou et al 2015;Oswald et al 2018).…”

“…Furthermore, the continued dominance of positivistic methodologies and theories within the field (Sherratt and Leicht 2020) may also have limited the generation of findings able to explore the rather more nebulous New View world of the social and the technical in practice, and thus constrained relevant academic outputs. We are ourselves methodologically curious.…”

Analysis of design-for-safety implementation factors in the Indonesian construction industry: A two-staged SEM-artificial neural network approach

“…On one hand, the epistemological facet (interpretivism) guides our exploration of how knowledge pertaining to the implementation of design-for-safety (DfS) is garnered and comprehended [ 36 ]. Concurrently, the ontological aspect (constructivism) delves into the intricate essence of the very reality and existence of DfS implementation factors [ 37 ].…”