Exploring virtual team-working effectiveness in the construction sector

Abstract

In defining a virtual team-working solution as with any new organisational form, success relies not merely on the introduction and adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), but also on critically analysing the underlying social and organisational aspects. The paper investigates the effectiveness of virtual teams, and any other suitable form of virtual collaboration, in the Construction sector and explores the factors that influence their successful adoption. The positivist strand adopted in the research emphasises a particular approach that promotes software application hosting through a dedicated application service provider, as opposed to the traditional software-licensing model. The research identifies important socio-organisational challenges inherent to the project-based nature of Construction, including issues related to technology adoption, team identification, trust, and motivation. Action research techniques have been employed to conduct the research involving two Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) from France and Finland.

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction?

“…It builds on the results of a wide consultation led by the authors in the context of the EU funded ROADCON project [58] that resulted in (a) comprehensive industry requirements, (b) an ICT vision, and (c) the first ICT roadmap for the Construction industry. In fact, the authors' research over the last decade (as illustrated in Figure 2) has evolved from advanced data and information management solutions [57], applied later in the context of CAD [13], to advanced knowledge management systems, articulated around the use of an ontology [40] [ 53], and deployed in distributed environments [52] [45]. Moreover, the emphasis on knowledge infused applications using service-oriented architectures has been made and reported in [46] [47] [48] [50].…”

“…The opportunities presented by the move towards collaborative working and information sharing encouraged a number of research projects in the early 1990's, which aimed to facilitate and provide frameworks to encourage the migration from document centred approaches towards model based, integrated systems: CONDOR [51]; COMMIT [57] being examples. Similarly, the OSMOS [52] research project aimed to develop a technical infrastructure which empowered the construction industry to move towards a computer, integrated approach.…”

“…This has been inspired from the authors' research. The underlying web-service infrastructure has already been developed as reported in [52], while some of the suggested services have already been specified and prototyped, including the Ontology service [69] and the Semantic compatibility service [50]. A brief explanation of each service is given below: Semantic compatibility service: this, as described earlier, determines whether two services can inter-work prior to invocation.…”

Towards a Methodology for Managing Competencies in Virtual Teams – A Systemic Approach

“…In view of the increasing de-centralisation and globalisation of work processes, many organisations have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams [6]. These virtual teams have unique characteristics including geographic distance, language and cultural barriers [17]. We are following the definition of Griffith who declares that a virtual team consists of Individuals that act interdependently through technology to achieve a common goal [7].…”

Exploring Ontology Adoption and Diffusion in the Construction Virtual Enterprise

“…Also, TAM, the model used to assess the adoption and diffusion of the ontology -with its original emphasis on the design of system characteristics -does not account for social influence in the adoption and utilization of new information systems [13]. Furthermore, It has been reported that when TAM is applied to collaborative systems, it is often observed that the belief structures (perceived ease of-use and perceived usefulness) are not stable, and that the influence of these belief structures act in combination with the effect of social influences to determine the use of the system [15,16,17]. The author encourages researchers to explore further models to investigate the adoption and diffusion factors of any ontology project.…”