- Title
- Research methodologies for studying the informal aspects in construction project organisations
- Creator
- Gajendran, Thayaparan; Brewer, Graham; Runeson, Goran; Dainty, Andrew
- Relation
- Management and Innovation for a Sustainable Built Environment (MISBE2011). Proceedings of the international Conference on Management and Innovation for a Sustainable Built Environment (Amsterdam, The Netherlands 20-23 June, 2011)
- Relation
- http://misbe2011.fyper.com/
- Publisher
- Delft University of Technology
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2011
- Description
- The complexity inherent in construction project environments can lead to emergence of informality and vice versa. This paper suggests that studying informalities in projects could lead to identifying paradoxes. Informalities in construction could be conceptualised through an economic or social perspective. Informalities may be explicit and visible, or simply implicit and thus invisible; commonly encountered in projects or specific to a particular project’s context; ethical/legal or unethical/illegal. These dimensions suggest a framework within which to describe the emergence of a project’s organizational behaviour. Non-functionalists and subjectivists argue that the informal issues are best understood through subjectivist paradigms. This paper presents an approach to the design of research approach appropriate to such tasks. In doing so it accommodates various philosophical perspectives, and the blending of various methods, to construct rigorous analysis to deliver context specific outcomes. It is argued that conceiving informality through alternative methodologies such as hermeneutic-emancipation and critical realism-semiotics offers opportunities to study informality in a meaningful way. Moreover, a design that combines multiple research strategies, e.g. case studies-ethnography, case study- ethnomethodology, is most suitable for informality investigations. It is suggested that operational aspects, such as ethical protocols and participant’s concerns, are taken into consideration in the design of a research methodology.
- Subject
- informality; methodology; method; construction
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1064918
- Identifier
- uon:17710
- Identifier
- ISBN:9789052693958
- Language
- eng
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