Exploring industrialized housebuilders’ interpretations of local requirements using institutional logics

Abstract

Industrialized housebuilding contractors use standardized processes and building systems to improve time and cost efficiency. Recent governmental investigations argue that Swedish local planning authorities’ requirement setting practices stifle the potential for increased industrialization. Yet, no previous research has accounted for the industrialized housebuilders’ perspective. We aim to explore industrialized housebuilders’ interpretations of local requirement setting, using institutional logics to increase the understanding of how structure and human agency influence the emergence of local requirements. Interviews were conducted with representatives of five industrialized housebuilders who together span the Swedish multi-family housing market. Findings indicate that industrialized housebuilders do not perceive intentional local requirement setting as problematic, yet struggle to cope with interpretive local requirement setting. Findings also necessitate distinguishing local requirement setting in the exercise of public authority from local requirement setting in public procurement. The agency structure dualism contributes an understanding of interpretive local requirement setting in the exercise of public authority as an expression of agency and of local requirement setting in public procurement as one of structure. Furthermore, using an institutional logics approach is found to provide an accentuation of human agency and the individual level of analysis that is often absent from construction management research.

Keywords:

• Agency
• industrialized building
• institutional theory
• local planning
• structure

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all representatives of the IHBs, who kindly participated in interviews, for providing valuable knowledge and data. The authors also acknowledge the financial support provided by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA), the foundation for Hjalmar Lundbohm Research Centre (HLRC), the municipalities of Gällivare and Kiruna and partner companies through the project ATTRACT (Attractive and Sustainable Cities in Cold Climate), and the Swedish Research Council Formas through the project ALICE (Attractive Living in Cold Environment).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.