Using Digital Socialization to Support Geographically Dispersed AEC Project Teams
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133, Issue 6
Abstract
In the field of knowledge management research, socialization means to convert individual into group tacit knowledge. This process matters from the outset of an architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) project to enhance collaborative work. Face-to-face meetings and phone calls undoubtedly facilitate socialization. However, meetings can be hard to timetable and expensive when AEC teams are geographically dispersed, whereas phone calls are cheap but offer limited capabilities for problem solving. Further, both media are not good at supporting asynchronous socialization. This study investigates the extent Internet-based media can promote cross-firm socialization and enhance collaborative work. The cross fertilization of findings from an exploratory case study with theory in computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) informs the development of a conceptual framework on digital socialization. This framework underpins IDRAK—a proof-of-concept of a rich Internet application prototype to promote socialization in AEC projects. Our main contribution is the design of a novel methodology to evaluate the usability of digital systems to support socialization at the early design stage of an AEC project. The results from our lab experiments suggest that IDRAK can satisfactorily and efficiently enhance collaborative work. However, more research is needed, first, to evaluate the effectiveness of IDRAK to improve design quality and asynchronous socialization; and second, to investigate how other CSCW features can improve the performance of IDRAK-like systems.
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Acknowledgments
The writers acknowledge the support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) which funded this work through First Grant No. EPSRC-GBGR/S47717/01 (recipient Gil). They thank Jeff Ashurst and Martin Austin, the hosts, respectively, at MWH and ARUP, for facilitating the sponsorship in kind provided by these two institutions. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the writers.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 133 • Issue 6 • June 2007
Pages: 462 - 473
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Jul 5, 2006
Accepted: Dec 8, 2006
Published online: Jun 1, 2007
Published in print: Jun 2007
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