Trialling a new approach to interdisciplinary collaboration in UK construction: A projects-as-practice analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence of collaboration on a UK construction project pioneering a novel form of project procurement (Integrated Project Insurance: IPI). Using a projects-as-practice lens and an action research approach, examination of linked episodes of project activity chart the unfolding of collaboration praxis in an IPI context through the frequent interplays of praxis (situated doings), practice (rules, values, policies) and practitioners working together. The analysis focuses on important requirements in IPI: that project practitioners, supported by a facilitator, collaborate to develop joint solutions to project requirements and share responsibility for them. Findings show how practitioners understood how to collaborate through the progressive enactment of working together rather than by developing a prior agreement about what collaboration would involve. Thus, the doing of collaboration mattered more than sayings about it in how practitioners created meaning in developing new collaboration praxis. Through this enactment the facilitator role is understood more as a practitioner in the development of collaboration praxis than solely as a convenor of collaboration. Findings also show how the micro-activities of practitioners may be illuminated using a projects-as-practice lens combined with a focus on interconnected episodes of project life to understand the emergence of praxis on construction projects.

Keywords:

• Action research
• collaboration
• construction projects
• social practice
• projects-as-practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Acknowledgement

The research reported was part of Innovate UK’s Rethinking the Build programme and acknowledgement is made of the financial support provided by that programme. Specific results and their interpretation remain the responsibility of the authors.

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees and the journal editors for their insightful commentary and advice that helped to develop the arguments in this paper.

Notes

1 The project was part of the UK Government Cabinet Office programme of trials of new procurement approaches (Cabinet Office 792012).

2 While the focus of this paper is on how collaboration emerged on the Trial Project, the aim of our funded research had a broader remit, understanding how well collaboration worked and the role and influence of the extensive IPI apparatus in supporting it.

3 FUSION: Fairness, Unity, Seamless, Innovative, Open, No Blame. These principles derive from a collaborative working approach developed for Glaxo Welcome in the 1990s – see https://www.ipinitiatives.co.uk/resources and Cartlidge (2004, p. 265–272).