Expert knowledge in the making: using a processual lens to examine expertise in construction

Abstract

Expertise in construction has typically been associated with the esoteric, where experts occupy privileged positions through their possession of specialist skills and knowledge. In this conceptual piece, an attempt is made to broaden this view of expertise found in the construction management literature by drawing on a reading of the process philosophical writings of Henri Bergson and others. Re-reading expertise from a processual standpoint, it is argued that our conceptualization of expertise in construction management should move beyond its treatment as a thing to bring to the fore expertise as an open-ended, ongoing, ever-evolving process of becoming. At the heart of this ontological shift of expertise in construction lies the emphasis on the tacit and recognition that expertise is, at the same time, interactional, intuitive and incidental. These ideas are illustrated in a vignette of environmental expertise in an airport context.

Keywords:

• Becoming
• intuition
• la durée (duration)
• organization theory
• process philosophy

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Vivian Liang for her research assistance in collecting the data, which forms the basis of the illustrative vignette presented here. I am also grateful for the comments provided by the editors and three anonymous referees in shaping this paper.

Notes

1. Here, professionalism is discussed with a small ‘p’ to extend the discussion beyond the Professional Institutions that are well known in the construction industry (e.g. in architecture, engineering, quantity surveying, and construction management, etc.). Rather, as Freidson (2001) argued, professionalism extends to craft labour as well (e.g. the biblical trades of carpentry/joinery and masonry/bricklaying).

2. Curiously, for the CIOB, the size of the company is a key deciding factor that differentiates between the Chartered Builder status and the Chartered Construction Manager status. According to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the CIOB web pages, members can exercise discretion over the choice of chartered status, although they recommend that a Chartered Construction Manager is more suited for someone working ‘with a big construction company tackling multimillion projects’ (see www.ciob.org/chartered-construction-manager accessed on 20 August 2015).

3. In the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) Construction Skills Network’s forecast for 2015–2019 (see www.tinyurl.com/csn2015-2019 accessed on 20 August 2015), the annual recruitment requirement across the UK for ‘Not Elsewhere Classified’ stood at 4130 workers, which constituted the second largest annual recruitment requirement after those workers in wood trades. An earlier forecast, 2012–2016, placed ‘Not Elsewhere Classified’ as the largest group in demand.

4. Although the work on expertise by Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus have been criticised for its normative account of how novices become experts (see, e.g. Selinger and Crease, 2002 for a useful critique), this conceptual model of expertise has been used pervasively in construction management research, and wider field of management and organizational studies (see, e.g. Ewenstein and Whyte, 2007; Boyd, 2013; Sage, forthcoming for examples related to construction management).

5. It is neither possible nor necessary to provide a detailed explanation of Henri Bergson’s ideas; only some of his key ideas are borrowed for the purpose of developing the argument about expert knowledge in the making. For a more comprehensive overview of Bergson’s ideas, the reader is referred to a contemporary piece found in Linstead (2014).

6. See Mutch (forthcoming) who, although maintains reservations over a ‘strong’ process philosophical standpoint that constantly emphasizes flux, also called for more attention paid to practices.

7. This is also inspired by a contemporary reading of the organizational routines literature, in which scholars such as Feldman (2000), Cohen (2007) and Dionysiou and Tsoukas (2013) maintain that there is nothing mundane about routines and that routines are effortful accomplishments that can offer a source of generative capacity and continuous change. This strand of the organizational routines literature also borrows from a process philosophical standpoint.

8. A sound insulation grant scheme has been and continues to be in operation since 1972. MyAirport supports up to 80% of the costs associated with insulating an affected property today.

9. Bats are also unlike birds, in that bats are mammals that fly.