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Kifokeris, D and Löwstedt, M (2021) Lost and Found in Translation: Top-Down Decoupling and Bottom-Up Recoupling of Strategies and Practices in Construction Production. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (Eds.), Proceedings 37th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-7 September 2021, UK, Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 532-541.
- Type: Conference Proceedings
- Keywords: Construction production, site managers, lean construction, loose coupling, strategy-as-process-and-practice
- ISBN/ISSN:
- URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/b9c53f63f2c8daf5a3ac5b0adb0886a5.pdf
- Abstract:
Researchers have noted an apparent decoupling between construction production strategies formulated at upper management, and their top-down translation into on-site practices. In this paper, we revisit the research question of how and why there is such a decoupling and use that to conceptualise a primarily bottom-up schema of production strategizing, drawing on site managers’ perspectives. As such, we conduct a Sweden-specific literature review focusing on (s) lean construction production practice variants, and (b) site managers’ dispositions towards production strategy improvements imposed by upper organisational levels – which may not align with hands-on best practices. The findings show that production-oriented lean construction variants aiming at strategy or on-site processes may lack an interface altogether; furthermore, there exists a decoupling between the standardisation logic of the strategic top-down view of production, and site managers’ tendency to act in free problem-solving roles. We then use the strategy as process and practice (SAPP) framework to integrate those findings and conceptualise a best practice-informed production strategising schema. This schema favors bottom-up production strategising, but also considers a loop-like collaboration approach – in an effort to integrate the benefits from a top-down production standardisation, with the flexible bottom-up buffer zones allowing for innovations and out-of-box solutions.