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- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
Description
The goal of this research study was to identify the competencies the Project Manager (PM) will need to respond to the challenges the construction industry faces in 2022 and beyond. The study revealed twenty-one emerging challenges for construction PMs grouped into four primary disruptive forces: workforce demographics, globalization, rapidly evolving technology, and changing organizational structures. The future PM will respond to these emerging challenges using a combination of fourteen competencies. The competencies are grouped into four categories: technical (multi-disciplined, practical understanding of technology), management (keen business insight, understanding of project management, knowledge network building, continuous risk monitoring), cognitive (complex decisions making, emotional maturity, effective communication), and leadership (leveraging diverse thinking, building relationships, engaging others, mentoring, building trust). Popular data collection methods used in project management research, such as surveys and interviews, have received criticism about the differences between stated responses to questions, what respondents say they will do, and revealed preferences, what they actually practice in the workplace. Rather than relying on surveys, this research study utilized information generated from games and exercises bundled into one-day training seminars conducted by Construction Industry Institute (CII) companies for current and upcoming generations of PMs. Educational games and exercises provide participants with the opportunity to apply classroom learning and workplace experience to resolve issues presented in real-world scenarios, providing responses that are more closely aligned with the actual decisions and activities occurring on projects. The future competencies were identified by combining results of the literature review with information from the games and exercises through an iterative cycle of data mining, analysis, and consolidation review sessions with CII members. This competency forecast will be used as a basis for company recruiting and to create tools for professional development programs and project management education at the university level. In addition to the competency forecast, the research identified simulation games and exercises as components of a project management development program in a classroom setting. An instrument that links the emerging challenges with the fourteen competencies and learning tools that facilitate the mastering of these competencies has also been developed.
ContributorsKing, Cynthia Joyce (Author) / Wiezel, Avi (Thesis advisor) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Owner organizations in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry are presented with a wide variety of project delivery approaches. Implementation of these approaches, while enticing due to their potential to save money, reduce schedule delays, or improve quality, is extremely difficult to accomplish and requires a concerted change management effort. Research in the field of organizational behavior cautions that perhaps more than half of all organizational change efforts fail to accomplish their intended objectives. This study utilizes an action research approach to analyze change message delivery within owner organizations, model owner project team readiness and adoption of change, and identify the most frequently encountered types of resistance from lead project members. The analysis methodology included Spearman's rank order correlation, variable selection testing via three methods of hierarchical linear regression, relative weight analysis, and one-way ANOVA. Key findings from this study include recommendations for communicating the change message within owner organizations, empirical validation of critical predictors for change readiness and change adoption among project teams, and identification of the most frequently encountered resistive behaviors within change implementation in the AEC industry. A key contribution of this research is the recommendation of change management strategies for use by change practitioners.
ContributorsLines, Brian (Author) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Thesis advisor) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The construction industry faces important performance problems such as low productivity, poor quality of work, and work-related accidents and injuries. Creating a high reliability work system that is simultaneously highly productive and exceptionally safe has become a challenge for construction practitioners and scholars. The main goal of this dissertation was to create an understanding of high reliability construction work systems based on lessons from the production practices of high performance work crews. High performance work crews are defined as the work crews that constantly reach and maintain a high level of productivity and exceptional safety record while delivering high quality of work. This study was conceptualized on findings from High Reliability Organizations and with a primary focus on lean construction, human factors, safety, and error management. Toward the research objective, this dissertation answered two major questions. First, it explored the task factors and project attributes that shape and increase workers' task demands and consequently affect workers' safety, production, and quality performance. Second, it explored and investigated the production practices of construction field supervisors (foremen) to understand how successful supervisors regulate task and project demands to create a highly reliable work process. Employing case study methodology, this study explored and analyzed the work practices of six work crews and crew supervisors in different trades including concrete, masonry, and hot asphalt roofing construction. The case studies included one exceptional and one average performing crew from each trade. Four major factors were considered in the selection of exceptional crew supervisors: (1) safety performance, (2) production performance, (3) quality performance, and (4) the level of project difficulty they supervised. The data collection was carried out in three phases including: (1) interview with field supervisors to understand their production practices, (2) survey and interview with workers to understand their perception and to identify the major sources of task demands, and (3) several close field observations. Each trade's specific findings including task demands, project attributes, and production practices used by crew supervisors are presented in a separate chapter. At the end the production practices that converged to create high reliability work systems are summarized and presented in nine major categories.
ContributorsMemarian, Babak (Author) / Bashford, Howard (Thesis advisor) / Boren, Rebecca (Committee member) / Wiezel, Avi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The success or failure of projects is not determined only by procedures, tasks, and technologies, but also by the project team and its effectiveness. In order to lead project teams towards successful outcomes, project managers must maintain high quality relationships in the workplace. When looking at employees’ relationships in the workplace, Social Exchange Theory introduces two types of exchanges: employee-organization and leader-member exchanges. While both types of exchanges focus exclusively on the employee’s longitudinal relationships, the interpersonal relationships among the team members are usually overlooked.
This research presents the results of a quantitative study of the interpersonal relationships of 327 project managers and assistant project managers in their workplace. Specifically, the study investigates if the quality of the relationship with particular stakeholders, such as one’s immediate supervisor (boss), peers, or subordinates, drives the individual’s quality of the relationship with other stakeholders.
Contrary to the expectations, in strictly hierarchical organizations (one direct supervisor), there is no significant correlation between the quality of relationships with the boss and the overall quality of the individual’s relationships. However, in the case of matrix organizations (two or three bosses), there are significant correlations between several variables such as the quality of the relationship, perceived importance and the time spent with each stakeholder, as well the inclination of the participant towards leadership actions. The driving relationship in matrix organizations is the one with “the most important peer”.
This research presents the results of a quantitative study of the interpersonal relationships of 327 project managers and assistant project managers in their workplace. Specifically, the study investigates if the quality of the relationship with particular stakeholders, such as one’s immediate supervisor (boss), peers, or subordinates, drives the individual’s quality of the relationship with other stakeholders.
Contrary to the expectations, in strictly hierarchical organizations (one direct supervisor), there is no significant correlation between the quality of relationships with the boss and the overall quality of the individual’s relationships. However, in the case of matrix organizations (two or three bosses), there are significant correlations between several variables such as the quality of the relationship, perceived importance and the time spent with each stakeholder, as well the inclination of the participant towards leadership actions. The driving relationship in matrix organizations is the one with “the most important peer”.
ContributorsK. Jamali, M. Hossein (Author) / Wiezel, Avi (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth T. (Committee member) / Badger, William (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019