RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES FOR STUDYING THE INFORMAL ASPECTS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECT ORGANIZATIONS misbe2011 Tracking Number 156Presentation: Session: TG78 - Workshop Deconstructing organizational paradoxes Room: Assay Hall Session start: 14:00 Mon 20 Jun 2011 Thayaparan Gajendran thayaparan.gajendran@newcastle.edu.au Affifliation: Lecturer The University of Newcastle Graham Brewer graham.brewer@newcastle.edu.au Affifliation: Associate Professor The University of Newcastle Goran Runeson goran.runeson@uts.edu.au Affifliation: Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney Andrew Dainty A.R.J.Dainty@lboro.ac.uk Affifliation: Professor, Loughborough University Topics: - Deconstructing organisational paradoxes (Workshop) Abstract: It has been argued that the informal aspects of construction projects play a significant role in the way the project coalesces and subsequently operates. These informalities (e.g. practices, systems, clans) may be real and visible, or simply perceived 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 can be best understood by using an emancipatory framework of investigation. This paper presents an approach to the design of research methods appropriate to such tasks. In doing so it accommodates various philosophical points of departure, and the blending of various methods, to construct rigorous analysis to deliver context specific outcomes. |