Managing construction project change: a knowledge management perspective

Sepani Senaratne and Martin Sexton

Construction Management and Economics, 2008, vol. 26, issue 12, 1303-1311

Abstract: In the information age, organization theories have addressed problem-solving as an information-processing activity. However, in this era, with the realization of knowledge-based views of the organization, shared problem-solving is increasingly recognized as a knowledge creation trigger. During shared problem-solving, stakeholders bring different types of knowledge into the problem situation and it is captured, created and shared by the team members. In construction projects, shared problem-solving often takes place through pragmatic problem-solving on site, in particular, through managing project changes. However, this significant role of knowledge in managing project change is not well appreciated in the extant literature. Accordingly, to explore how knowledge is created during project changes in construction a case study approach was adopted using two change events in two collaborative settings within the UK construction industry. The case study findings revealed that different forms of knowledge are created during the project change process within construction projects. However, this knowledge remains largely tacit and does not disseminate to the wider organization due to imbalanced codification and personalization strategies existing in such settings. A knowledge management perspective is introduced to manage project change so that construction project teams can successfully resolve and learn from change events.

Keywords: Shared problem-solving; managing project change; construction projects; knowledge management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01446190802621044 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:conmgt:v:26:y:2008:i:12:p:1303-1311

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RCME20

DOI: 10.1080/01446190802621044

Access Statistics for this article

Construction Management and Economics is currently edited by Will Hughes

More articles in Construction Management and Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().