Emerging Hybrid Practices in Construction Design Work: Role of Mixed Media
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136, Issue 4
Abstract
Information technologies are used across all stages of the construction process, and are crucial in the delivery of large projects. Drawing on detailed research on a construction megaproject, we take a practice-based approach to examining the practical and theoretical tensions between existing ways of working and the introduction of new coordination tools in this paper. We analyze the new hybrid practices that emerge, using insights from actor-network theory to articulate the delegation of actions to material and digital objects within ecologies of practice. The three vignettes that we discuss highlight this delegation of actions, the “plugging” and “patching” of ecologies occurring across media and the continual iterations of working practices between different types of media. By shifting the focus from tools to these wider ecologies of practice, the approach has important managerial implications for the stabilization of new technologies and practices and for managing technological change on large construction projects. We conclude with a discussion of new directions for research, oriented to further elaborating on the importance of the material in understanding change.
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Acknowledgments
The writers gratefully acknowledge the support of the Innovative Construction Research Centre at the University of Reading, and of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. We also gratefully acknowledge our various research partners and industrial collaborators. In particular the second writer acknowledges the support of the Built Environment Innovation Centre at Imperial College London. Errors and omissions remain the writers’ responsibility. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers for their positive and insightful comments.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 136 • Issue 4 • April 2010
Pages: 468 - 476
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Dec 15, 2008
Accepted: Sep 2, 2009
Published online: Sep 3, 2009
Published in print: Apr 2010
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