Knowledge Sharing Strategies for Large Complex Building Projects.

摘要

The construction industry is a project-based sector with a myriad of actors such as architects, construction companies, consultants, producers of building materials (Anumba et al., 2005). The interaction between the project partners is often quite limited, which leads to insufficient knowledge sharing during the project and knowledge being unavailable for reuse (Fruchter et al. 2002). The result can be a considerable amount of extra work, delays and cost overruns. Design outcomes that are supposed to function as boundary objects across different disciplines can lead to misinterpretation of requirements, project content and objectives. In this research, knowledge is seen as resulting from social interactions; knowledge resides in communities and it is generated through social relationships (Wenger 1998, Olsson et al. 2008). Knowledge is often tacit, intangible and context-dependent and it is articulated in the changing responsibilities, roles, attitudes and values that are present in the work environment (Bresnen et al., 2003). In a project environment, knowledge enables individuals to solve problems, take decisions, and apply these decisions to actions. In order to achieve a shared understanding and minimize the misunderstanding and misinterpretations among project actors, it is necessary to share knowledge (Fong 2003). Sharing knowledge is particularly crucial in large complex building projects (LCBPs) in order to accelerate the building process, improve architectural quality and prevent mistakes or undesirable results. However, knowledge sharing is often hampered through professional or organizational boundaries or contractual concerns. When knowledge is seen as an organizational asset, there is little willingness among project organizations to share their knowledge. Individual people may recognize the need to promote knowledge sharing throughout the project, but typically there is no deliberate strategy agreed by all project partners to address knowledge sharing. In the literature, two main approaches on knowledge sharing can be distinguished, an object or content -oriented perspective and a community-oriented perspective. In the object perspective, technology is seen as a medium to store and share knowledge. The limitations of this perspective are that social processes and tacit knowledge are not adequately supported and there has generally been a slow adoption of such technology in design practices. The community perspective prevents these problems by allowing for the natural and informal formation of communities, however, communities can become largely independent and unconnected, which makes it more difficult to entice them towards a certain strategic direction. Since both approaches have their limitations, this thesis proposes a holistic framework for knowledge sharing in LCBPs drawing on concepts by Mintzberg (1973) and Activity Theory. Mintzberg’s concepts are used to discuss the type of implementation (top-down, bottom-up), and the origin of the strategies (deliberate/emergent/(un)realized). For analysing the content and effect of each strategy, concepts from Activity Theory (tools, subject, object, rules, community, and division of labour) are used. The proposed model, the Knowledge Diamond, consists of four dimensions for analysing and designing knowledge sharing strategies for LCBPs. Three of these were inspired by Activity Theory, namely tools, procedures, and social practices, while a fourth emerged as a crucial dimension in this thesis: physical settings. This framework was used to examine knowledge sharing strategies in a comparative analysis of two large complex building projects. Based on rich data from observations, documents and interview, the origins, the development and the effect of both forms of knowledge sharing environments are investigated. The first part of the analysis sheds new light on the possibilities of knowledge sharing in large complex building project. The unique, temporary, and complex nature of such projects has often been reported as a potential barrier to investing knowledge sharing. However, this analysis highlighted that the while the location is unique, the underlying challenges are typically not, and although projects are per definition temporary, these large, complex projects often last for a decade. Investing in knowledge sharing is therefore possible and worth the effort, and with respect to complexity more needed than those involved are aware of. In the second part of the empirical data analysis, the knowledge sharing strategies inuse in the two cases were examined. The first case represents a people-oriented approach using collocated open plan offices for the entire design team; the second case represents a tool-oriented approach drawing on a Building Information Model (BIM). The co-located offices provided the physical setting for knowledge sharing, but it not planned as a conscious strategy and so was mainly regarded as sharing the same office floor and