Exploring industrialized housebuilders’ interpretations of local requirements using institutional logics

Abstract

Industrialized housebuilding contractors use standardized processes and building systems to improve time and cost efficiency. Recent governmental investigations argue that Swedish local planning authorities' requirement setting practices stifle the potential for increased industrialization. Yet, no previous research has accounted for the industrialized housebuilders' perspective. We aim to explore industrialized housebuilders' interpretations of local requirement setting, using institutional logics to increase the understanding of how structure and human agency influence the emergence of local requirements. Interviews were conducted with representatives of five industrialized housebuilders who together span the Swedish multi-family housing market. Findings indicate that industrialized housebuilders do not perceive intentional local requirement setting as problematic, yet struggle to cope with interpretive local requirement setting. Findings also necessitate distinguishing local requirement setting in the exercise of public authority from local requirement setting in public procurement. The agency structure dualism contributes an understanding of interpretive local requirement setting in the exercise of public authority as an expression of agency and of local requirement setting in public procurement as one of structure. Furthermore, using an institutional logics approach is found to provide an accentuation of human agency and the individual level of analysis that is often absent from construction management research.

Product platform alignment in industrialised house building

“…Specific customer requirements and site conditions (Aitchison 2017) are typical examples. Moreover, Viking and Lidelöw (2015) identify the interpretive local requirement setting as detrimental in the IHB context. An interpretive local requirement setting occurs when local planning authorities, who are in charge of issuing building permits, interpret legal requirements and codes in a different way than an IHB company does.…”

“…Business models are the field of research that connected product platforms and the external business environment in the IHB context (Brege et al 2014, Lessing and Brege 2015, Lessing and Brege 2018. The terminology regarding the external business environment in the project dimension of IHB was adopted from Viking and Lidelöw (2015) and Aitchison (2017). The units of analysis were revised to the state as presented in the frame of reference and applied on empirical data in conducting analysis and synthesis iteration (Step 6).…”

“…In this section, the analysis of empirical data that addresses the first objective, that is to synthesise a model that provides a coherent description of product platform alignment in the IHB context, is presented. The model (Figure 2) consists of product platform elements (Robertson and Ulrich 1998), market position, offering (Brege et al 2014) and the external business environment (Sutherland 2004, Viking and Lidelöw 2015, Aitchison 2017) and the connections and interplay (Ritter and Lettl 2018) between them. It is a general description common to all four business models investigated.…”

Understanding Stakeholders in Off-Site Manufacturing: A Literature Review

“…Understanding stakeholders' requirements and expectations is a key task of stakeholder analysis. Prior studies reported OSM customers' expectations and requirements in several countries/regions (Armacost et al 1994;Phillips et al 2016;Viking and Lidelöw 2015;Švajlenka and Kozlovská 2018b). For instance, Armacost et al (1994) revealed that the customers' needs referred to the style, process technology, materials, performance feature and functionality in the US manufactured housing market.…”

Looking out to look in: inspiration from social sciences for construction management research

“…Regarding multiplicity in decision-making, Hedgren and Stehn (2014) and Viking and Lidelöw (2015) found that actors manage multiple meanings in adopting infrastructure development and maintenance. On the other hand, they are eager to join us in our pursuit of academic development in order to fathom the mysteries of the construction industry and finally go beyond the common sense in order to actually bring about change in our sector.…”