BRINGING THE BUILDING BACK IN
AN INVITATION TO A RESEARCH WORKSHOP
Time: 16-18 November 2011
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Organizers: Kristian Kreiner (kk.ioa@cbs.dk), Jan Mouritsen (jm.om@cbs.dk), Lise Justesen (lj.ioa@cbs.dk) and Kjell Tryggestad (kt.ioa@cbs.dk)
Invitation
The Network, 'Management Studies of the Building Process', invites you to participate in a research workshop. The workshop will aim to outline a future research agenda concerning one of the many issues involved in organizing and managing building projects. This issue is the role and significance of the building itself.
Why a new research agenda?
There are already many research agendas in play, but we contend that these agendas tend to underplay the significance of the object under construction, i.e. the building. It is present “only” as an image around which organization and management happen. It has been put into brackets. This allows the construction field to be addressed like any other field – it is just another area of application of organizational theory.
We suggest that the building should be brought back in, in the form both of a project and an object. By looking at it as a project we acknowledge that it is ‘unfinished’, in formation, under construction, … This will bring to the foreground the frictions and restrictions of the building as an projected (imagined) object that emerge in the continuous interplay (competitive as well as collaborative) within a dynamic array of stakeholders. New stakeholders emerge, new interests are discovered, and new compromises and equilibriums are negotiated. We need to understand how such interplays can be understood, how they are mediated through various material, cognitive and visual artifacts, and how they are conditioned by the conception of the building as a future object.
We aim to produce new knowledge by exploring the specific interaction of the building as object and as project. The project will become reflected in the object, like the object will be reflected in the project and the ways in which processes of managing people, stakeholders, values, time, risk etc. will transpire. By pursuing such an aim, we also revolt against the tradition to consider management as a generic process, i.e. that the productive task, the construction of a physical building, is an epiphenomenon to the task of managing the project. On the contrary, we suggest that the “nature” of the productive task will in important manners influence the ways and means of managing their design and implementation. The question is, in which ways, how much, etc.
An illustrative example
While there is much sense in pursuing a research strategy of reducing the particularities of cases to get at a general insight into the intricacies of managing and organizing social activity, there is also much sense in researching such particularities of the particular case. Most particular to the building industry is the product being produced. A building is similar to many other physical products in the sense of being a material object, a means of income for people and companies, etc. But while sharing such characteristics with e.g. computer CHIPS, they are also strikingly different in size, in visual transparency, in affordance etc. Assessing the functioning and quality of computer CHIPS requires the enrolment of tools and expertise, while the functioning and quality of a building is subject to immediate visual inspection by also common people, e.g. users and casual observers. This simple observation may easily help us explaining the striking differences in the ways the design and production of CHIPS and buildings are organized.
Supportive ideas
Objects, to the extent that they are ‘finished’, specific, already understood and defined, are hardly problematic. By assuming that buildings are objects from the very early start, we allow ourselves to treat them as “matters of fact”, rather than as “matters of concern”. By insisting on treating them as projects, we redefine the building as a matter of concern for the many actors and stakeholders. They are under construction – even after they have a physical presence on their own, i.e. in other ways than in their representations like drawings, models, visual images, etc. They are arenas for the discovery and exercise of interests. They are the scene for exploring the many new aspects and dimensions that need to be managed. They are symbols for agreements, collectives of knowledge and expertise, aesthetics, utility, etc. – and like all symbols their meaning needs to be reaffirmed, celebrated, and enacted ceremonially. But in all these capacities and meanings, the project dynamics will be conditioned and fuelled by the specific character of the building as object.
‘Value management’, already known to the construction field, may serve as a central metaphor for the kind of research that we envisage. While ‘value management’ is often understood as a way of making value a criterion for allocating scare resources, we see it as a much boarder metaphor: one about finding and constructing value – value as both a verb and a noun. In developing a collective appreciation of the aspects of the building that has value; and in balancing conflicting interests, the building is a central object of attention. New agreements, new knowledge, and new interests, become implemented in the building design. The building itself defines the limits and conditions for such agreements, but it also demands the collectivization of the interests. There is no way of leaving the building untouched, and there is no way of leaving interests constant, if a building is to materialize in the end. Therefore, the value and interests become negotiated until everyone will accept the solution, a form of truce that will last until new contingencies make the compromise untenable for the building-object to be.
Just how the building as a project sets limits for and facilitates the discovery and negotiation of interests, the combination and collectivization of knowledge and expertise, and the discovery of new values and concerns, is a valid theme for empirical investigation. The agenda is enforced by the following tenets:
a. We treat interests as fluid, flexible, and situated (i.e. as variable). For idealistic or for pragmatic reasons what stakeholders and participants consider to be in their interests will develop and take shape from situational factors.
b. Lateral relationships – between design elements, between stakeholders, between buildings and context – are more salient than vertical relationships. The latter tend to prioritize few relationships, while the adding of new relationships as the participants explore and enact new matters of concern when they arise, is fundamental to the achievement of a physical outcome of the project.
c. Closure is a task, not a state of affairs. The plan requires the actors to make the process planable before the plan can be “implemented”. The specific changes and compromises in the design that are needed in the face of contingencies cannot be deduced from the contracts, the trade customs and the like. They need to be interpreted and negotiated in situ, but in ways so that the implications for the design can be explained retrospectively with reference to the contracts, customs, etc.
d. The projection of the building, in the form of visualizations, is an element, but also merely an element, of the scene on which performance is staged. In filling in the future as an relatively open horizon, the few dimensions on which the future and the process has been specified, defined, and planned need to be supplemented with a host of other dimensions, all of which are salient for understanding the building process. In physically building a building the actors need to take a pragmatic view. The plan – and the implications from deviating from the plan – cannot trumph, only color the multiplicity of other concerns and issues.
Three perspectives
Pursuing this interest in the ways in which the building – as an object and a project – may be made salient to our understanding of the building process, we propose three perspectives or areas in which the multi-dimensionality of the problems can be studied. They are:
• Constructing Design – design in the sense of conceiving potentiality prior to making choices and prioritizing options. Finding and relating multiple uses, areas of expertise, interests etc. are central aspects of every problem solving process.
• Constructing the project-company relationship – crafting and relating the individual project to a portfolio of projects, strategies, managerial agendas etc.
• Constructing new collaborative frameworks or new contexts – forming multiple organizations, firms, interests, risks, etc. into new starting points for the building processes.
The workshop format
Participants in this workshop are invited based on their previous work and expressed interest in the intended discussions. The size of the group is approx. 30.
A workshop is presumably dedicated to accomplishing work through dialogue. The task is, as already said, to outline an agenda for future research. The empirical focus is the building process in its entirety, time-wise and participation-wise. The research methodology is some form of extended case study.
The theoretical fields are more diverse, but all within the social sciences and probably more sociology than economics, more organization than management, more ethnography than philosophy. The research paradigm is more processual than structural.
The success of the workshop hinges on
1. input of texts and ideas,
2. an inspirational interaction during the workshop, and
3. a commitment to finalize the work by embarking on research within the common agenda outlined at the workshop.
The format of the inputs is rather relaxed. We accept short position papers, outlines of full papers, full papers, and posters as long as they contribute to the development of a common research agenda for the future.
The workshop format is dominated by plenary discussions on the basis of delivered written inputs. We make the responsibility for the usefulness of the debate as collective as possible, but we may arrange for discussants to kick start the discussion.
The vision for future activities
During the workshop we hope to create a commitment to publish the results from the workshop. A collective framework - like a special issue of a journal, one or more edited books, etc. - may be a good idea, but individual publishing is also an option.
The ultimate vision is to see new research initiatives and programs in the future that take the building - as object and as project - serious as premise for organizing construction processes.
Joining the research workshop
The invitation includes free room and board at the conference venue for the duration of the workshop. Travel expenses and additional accommodation will be at the participant’s own expense.
The workshop is limited to approximately 30 participants. Should we receive more applications we will select participants in such a way that the group will mirror the variety of perspectives and types of research in our field.
To apply for participation in the research workshop, please send an email to Kristian Kreiner (kk.ioa@cbs.dk) or one of the other organizers as soon as possible and no later than 31 August 2011.
Participation will be confirmed early September when also additional information and instruction concerning the workshop will be forwarded.
We look forward to welcoming you in Copenhagen.
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Organizers: Kristian Kreiner (kk.ioa@cbs.dk), Jan Mouritsen (jm.om@cbs.dk), Lise Justesen (lj.ioa@cbs.dk) and Kjell Tryggestad (kt.ioa@cbs.dk)
Invitation
The Network, 'Management Studies of the Building Process', invites you to participate in a research workshop. The workshop will aim to outline a future research agenda concerning one of the many issues involved in organizing and managing building projects. This issue is the role and significance of the building itself.
Why a new research agenda?
There are already many research agendas in play, but we contend that these agendas tend to underplay the significance of the object under construction, i.e. the building. It is present “only” as an image around which organization and management happen. It has been put into brackets. This allows the construction field to be addressed like any other field – it is just another area of application of organizational theory.
We suggest that the building should be brought back in, in the form both of a project and an object. By looking at it as a project we acknowledge that it is ‘unfinished’, in formation, under construction, … This will bring to the foreground the frictions and restrictions of the building as an projected (imagined) object that emerge in the continuous interplay (competitive as well as collaborative) within a dynamic array of stakeholders. New stakeholders emerge, new interests are discovered, and new compromises and equilibriums are negotiated. We need to understand how such interplays can be understood, how they are mediated through various material, cognitive and visual artifacts, and how they are conditioned by the conception of the building as a future object.
We aim to produce new knowledge by exploring the specific interaction of the building as object and as project. The project will become reflected in the object, like the object will be reflected in the project and the ways in which processes of managing people, stakeholders, values, time, risk etc. will transpire. By pursuing such an aim, we also revolt against the tradition to consider management as a generic process, i.e. that the productive task, the construction of a physical building, is an epiphenomenon to the task of managing the project. On the contrary, we suggest that the “nature” of the productive task will in important manners influence the ways and means of managing their design and implementation. The question is, in which ways, how much, etc.
An illustrative example
While there is much sense in pursuing a research strategy of reducing the particularities of cases to get at a general insight into the intricacies of managing and organizing social activity, there is also much sense in researching such particularities of the particular case. Most particular to the building industry is the product being produced. A building is similar to many other physical products in the sense of being a material object, a means of income for people and companies, etc. But while sharing such characteristics with e.g. computer CHIPS, they are also strikingly different in size, in visual transparency, in affordance etc. Assessing the functioning and quality of computer CHIPS requires the enrolment of tools and expertise, while the functioning and quality of a building is subject to immediate visual inspection by also common people, e.g. users and casual observers. This simple observation may easily help us explaining the striking differences in the ways the design and production of CHIPS and buildings are organized.
Supportive ideas
Objects, to the extent that they are ‘finished’, specific, already understood and defined, are hardly problematic. By assuming that buildings are objects from the very early start, we allow ourselves to treat them as “matters of fact”, rather than as “matters of concern”. By insisting on treating them as projects, we redefine the building as a matter of concern for the many actors and stakeholders. They are under construction – even after they have a physical presence on their own, i.e. in other ways than in their representations like drawings, models, visual images, etc. They are arenas for the discovery and exercise of interests. They are the scene for exploring the many new aspects and dimensions that need to be managed. They are symbols for agreements, collectives of knowledge and expertise, aesthetics, utility, etc. – and like all symbols their meaning needs to be reaffirmed, celebrated, and enacted ceremonially. But in all these capacities and meanings, the project dynamics will be conditioned and fuelled by the specific character of the building as object.
‘Value management’, already known to the construction field, may serve as a central metaphor for the kind of research that we envisage. While ‘value management’ is often understood as a way of making value a criterion for allocating scare resources, we see it as a much boarder metaphor: one about finding and constructing value – value as both a verb and a noun. In developing a collective appreciation of the aspects of the building that has value; and in balancing conflicting interests, the building is a central object of attention. New agreements, new knowledge, and new interests, become implemented in the building design. The building itself defines the limits and conditions for such agreements, but it also demands the collectivization of the interests. There is no way of leaving the building untouched, and there is no way of leaving interests constant, if a building is to materialize in the end. Therefore, the value and interests become negotiated until everyone will accept the solution, a form of truce that will last until new contingencies make the compromise untenable for the building-object to be.
Just how the building as a project sets limits for and facilitates the discovery and negotiation of interests, the combination and collectivization of knowledge and expertise, and the discovery of new values and concerns, is a valid theme for empirical investigation. The agenda is enforced by the following tenets:
a. We treat interests as fluid, flexible, and situated (i.e. as variable). For idealistic or for pragmatic reasons what stakeholders and participants consider to be in their interests will develop and take shape from situational factors.
b. Lateral relationships – between design elements, between stakeholders, between buildings and context – are more salient than vertical relationships. The latter tend to prioritize few relationships, while the adding of new relationships as the participants explore and enact new matters of concern when they arise, is fundamental to the achievement of a physical outcome of the project.
c. Closure is a task, not a state of affairs. The plan requires the actors to make the process planable before the plan can be “implemented”. The specific changes and compromises in the design that are needed in the face of contingencies cannot be deduced from the contracts, the trade customs and the like. They need to be interpreted and negotiated in situ, but in ways so that the implications for the design can be explained retrospectively with reference to the contracts, customs, etc.
d. The projection of the building, in the form of visualizations, is an element, but also merely an element, of the scene on which performance is staged. In filling in the future as an relatively open horizon, the few dimensions on which the future and the process has been specified, defined, and planned need to be supplemented with a host of other dimensions, all of which are salient for understanding the building process. In physically building a building the actors need to take a pragmatic view. The plan – and the implications from deviating from the plan – cannot trumph, only color the multiplicity of other concerns and issues.
Three perspectives
Pursuing this interest in the ways in which the building – as an object and a project – may be made salient to our understanding of the building process, we propose three perspectives or areas in which the multi-dimensionality of the problems can be studied. They are:
• Constructing Design – design in the sense of conceiving potentiality prior to making choices and prioritizing options. Finding and relating multiple uses, areas of expertise, interests etc. are central aspects of every problem solving process.
• Constructing the project-company relationship – crafting and relating the individual project to a portfolio of projects, strategies, managerial agendas etc.
• Constructing new collaborative frameworks or new contexts – forming multiple organizations, firms, interests, risks, etc. into new starting points for the building processes.
The workshop format
Participants in this workshop are invited based on their previous work and expressed interest in the intended discussions. The size of the group is approx. 30.
A workshop is presumably dedicated to accomplishing work through dialogue. The task is, as already said, to outline an agenda for future research. The empirical focus is the building process in its entirety, time-wise and participation-wise. The research methodology is some form of extended case study.
The theoretical fields are more diverse, but all within the social sciences and probably more sociology than economics, more organization than management, more ethnography than philosophy. The research paradigm is more processual than structural.
The success of the workshop hinges on
1. input of texts and ideas,
2. an inspirational interaction during the workshop, and
3. a commitment to finalize the work by embarking on research within the common agenda outlined at the workshop.
The format of the inputs is rather relaxed. We accept short position papers, outlines of full papers, full papers, and posters as long as they contribute to the development of a common research agenda for the future.
The workshop format is dominated by plenary discussions on the basis of delivered written inputs. We make the responsibility for the usefulness of the debate as collective as possible, but we may arrange for discussants to kick start the discussion.
The vision for future activities
During the workshop we hope to create a commitment to publish the results from the workshop. A collective framework - like a special issue of a journal, one or more edited books, etc. - may be a good idea, but individual publishing is also an option.
The ultimate vision is to see new research initiatives and programs in the future that take the building - as object and as project - serious as premise for organizing construction processes.
Joining the research workshop
The invitation includes free room and board at the conference venue for the duration of the workshop. Travel expenses and additional accommodation will be at the participant’s own expense.
The workshop is limited to approximately 30 participants. Should we receive more applications we will select participants in such a way that the group will mirror the variety of perspectives and types of research in our field.
To apply for participation in the research workshop, please send an email to Kristian Kreiner (kk.ioa@cbs.dk) or one of the other organizers as soon as possible and no later than 31 August 2011.
Participation will be confirmed early September when also additional information and instruction concerning the workshop will be forwarded.
We look forward to welcoming you in Copenhagen.
