Abstract
Communication is dynamic, social, challenging, and a key quality factor for construction projects. This is especially the case in multinational and inter-organizational infrastructure projects where factors like culture and language differ among the involved actors. As infrastructure projects usually extend over longer periods of time, collaborative relationships need to be established in which the actors can develop, for example, mutual understanding, learning, and efficient working routines. By building on empirical data from contemporary infrastructure projects, we explore how international contractors and a large public client communicate in multinational infrastructure projects (i.e., what the challenges are and what competences are needed). The analysis is based on the linguistic framework of communicative competence, and we contribute to the development of collaborative models in construction project management by suggesting the concept of contextual communicative competence.
Highlights
The importance of well-functioning communication for efficient collaboration in construction projects has been established in earlier studies [1,2]
The findings present the ongoing processes involved when developing the capacity and performance to communicate in multinational infrastructure projects
The STA contracts stipulate that Swedish must be used as the project language, the requirements for Swedish being the sole language of inter-organizational communication is not necessarily enforced in practice
Summary
The importance of well-functioning communication for efficient collaboration in construction projects has been established in earlier studies [1,2]. When communication is studied in a construction project context, it is often defined and discussed in order to improve performance and seen as a rather stable element [5]. In these studies, communication is just a “randomly black box among a plethora of other activity black boxes” [5] Communication and learning in projects needs to be understood as something that is multifaceted and complex; it encompasses the individual, group, and organizational levels, and it does involve the transfer of information [8]
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