Design Decisions and Interactions: A Sociotechnical Network Perspective

Details

• Personal Author:
  Blismas N ; Lingard H ; Pirzadeh P
• Description:
  Effective interaction between project participants is essential in achieving a high-quality design. Through interaction, information is disseminated in project teams and the required knowledge becomes accessible during decision-making episodes. Consequently, effective interaction contributes to improved design outcomes and enhanced project efficiency leading to a higher chance of project success. Although interactions have been studied in the past, such studies predominantly focused on interaction patterns only, thus ignoring the decision-making context, participants' involvement, and the interdependencies between decisions. This paper makes a methodological contribution to the body of knowledge by proposing a sociotechnical framework. The framework enables the simultaneous investigation of decision interdependencies, the patterns of social interactions that address design knowledge requirements, and participants' involvement in and influence on making decisions. To demonstrate its efficacy, the framework was applied in a case study. The evidence suggests that design decisions with positive constructability outcomes could be achieved through an alignment between the information interdependencies of design decisions and the interaction patterns that underpin them. Involvement of participants with relevant knowledge and expertise and collaborative information exchanges between participants facilitated this alignment. The framework can be used in different project settings to analyze the theoretical mechanisms that characterize effective interaction in the context of design decision-making. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Construction Industry Decision Making Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Effective Interaction Construction Industry Decision Making Design Standards Exponential Random Graph Models Group Dynamics Information Dissemination Integrated Design Decision-making Multilevel Network Sociological Factors Sociotechnical Framework

  More +
• ISSN:
  0733-9364
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Cooperative Agreement
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 3 ; Virginia
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  147
• Issue:
  10
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20068066
• Citation:
  J Constr Eng Manage 2021 Oct; 147(10):04021110
• Contact Point Address:
  Payam Pirzadeh, Ph.D., School of Property, Construction and Project Management, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology Univ, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
• Email:
  payam.pirzadeh@rmit.edu.au
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20090901
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
• End Date:
  20150131
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:8afaba3aa4ca966098766ef85d9484e9fc226f2c855e0b6e862f603e9f5f041f1285829e418343033bcb8c87496bb7f168029d5a80602f903855ce3eb7933831
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230285/cdc_230285_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 912.28 KB ]