Communication in Construction Teams

Stephen Emmitt, Christopher Gorse

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781134225088
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Industrial Management
• Index: Business

Construction teams are usually complex, interdisciplinary and temporary, and, as such, the need for effective communication is crucial. However, published data regarding the manner in which individuals interact within the temporary project team is scarce, with little other than anecdotal evidence available.

Recognizing this gap, Communication in Construction Teams provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on interpersonal communication and delivers a critical review of various research methods previously used in and outside the construction management field. Making use of Bales' interaction process analysis (IPA), a tool used successfully in many fields to collect interaction data, the text investigates the link between successful projects and the effectiveness of communication, finding that participants in the construction process exhibit regular patterns of interaction and, most significantly, that there are different patterns of interaction associated with successful and unsuccessful projects.

Putting forward a number of practical suggestions to assist all actors involved in construction projects, this insightful publication will be of interest to researchers in the fields of building design and construction management.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The social life of construction projects
• 2 Construction communication research
• 3 Group interaction research
• 4 Group participation and interaction
• 5 Collecting communication data from construction projects
• 6 Interaction data from construction meetings
• 7 Team interaction characteristics
• 8 Successful and unsuccessful project outcomes
• 9 Discussion of the findings
• 10 Conclusions and recommendations
• Appendix 1 Definition of communication acts attributed to Bales’ IPA categories
• Appendix 2 Observer reliability: Test results
• Appendix 3 Data collection sheet
• Appendix 4 Number of meetings observed
• Appendix 5 Communication models developed from this research
• Bibliography
• Index