Methodology to extract underlying basic assumptions of a public sector construction project culture: an exploratory case study

Abstract

ABSTRACTIdentifying underlying basic assumptions of a construction project team brings insightfulness to cultural studies and is useful for managing project changes. However, methodological issues create barriers to such studies due to difficulties in capturing basic assumptions. This paper adopts an exploratory case study of a public sector building construction project to identify an appropriate methodology for data collection and test the ability to analyse the collected data for the purpose of extracting underlying basic assumptions of a construction project culture. Data were collected using interviews and observations, and analysed by code-based content analysis. Research findings confirm the suitability of questioning on internal integration and external adaptation problems of the construction project team to extract basic assumptions while highlighting the necessity of questioning on conflicting and critical situations of the project. Accordingly, several basic assumptions for client and consultant sub-cultural groups were identified. The methodology proposed in this study can be extended to explore basic assumptions of contractor sub-cultural group and then of the whole project.