Re-acting together: Coping collectively with breakdowns and the evolution of practices

Abstract

Coping with breakdowns is a challenge for people across fields of practice. Yet, both the role of breakdowns in interdependent work-processes and how actors cope collectively with them are currently not well understood. This ethnographic field study on coordination and inter-organizational relationships in a construction project presents empirical evidence of breakdowns and theorizes their role, consequences, and the variety of ways actors cope with them. Workers (on construction projects) face frequent breakdowns in their work-processes that they make sense of and cope with collectively. The paper examines breakdown processes that unfold over time to understand how actors make sense of and cope with breakdowns collectively. I identify three distinct types of breakdowns, and choose to focus on operational breakdowns to theorize about the breakdown resolution processes and how they relate to the evolution of practices. The analysis identifies four distinct coping practices for dealing with breakdowns, In conclusion, I suggest that both breakdown-processes and coping practices play a significant role in influencing project outcomes and the evolution of practices.