Project value as practice: Interactive valuation practices in architectural design projects

Abstract

In project research, value has been conceptualized either as something subjective in peoples’ minds or as an objective reality. However, in practice, project actors encounter, express, and negotiate value both subjectively (e.g., as ideals and beliefs) and objectively (e.g., as the price) depending on the evolving circumstances of real-life situations. To capture the project value phenomenon from project actors’ perspective, we adopt a projects-as-practice approach on project value, which puts the emphasis on the activity, process or practice of valuation rather than on value as something in itself. This suggests that project value must be understood with a focus on valuation practices, through which various project actors express what they value, and through which they evaluate the alternative ways of proceeding with the project tasks in hand. Using practice-level interaction data from three projects in an architectural practice, we reveal three nexuses of interrelated valuation practices with distinct practical rationalities, through which various considerations of project actors manifest themselves and get resolved in different ways. We argue that these valuation practices combined create an ongoing process of reconciliation in the observed projects and enact project value on an ongoing basis. We discuss how the cross-cutting issues of relational constitution of valuation practices, temporality as well as power relationships configure the practical rationality of valuation practices, thus determining the enacted project value. Our study complements the existing research on project value by establishing project value as practice, and by highlighting relational constitution, temporality, and power as key issues for the study of the project value phenomenon.