Occupational stereotypes in the construction industry

Abstract

An investigation of occupational stereotypes in the construction industry provides insights into the perceptions and expectations which different occupational groups have of each other. The results are valuable in the reduction of uncertainty, misunderstanding and conflict within construction projects and do not support the widely held view of institutionalized confrontational relationships. Instead, there appears to be a natural degree of goodwill underlying interpersonal relationships although it is delicate, precarious and easily destroyed by insensitive managerial practices.Stereotypes Culture Values Attitudes Beliefs Communication Conflict,

Overprivileged, self-absorbed, dumb jocks: exploration of stereotypes of student-athletes

“…Participants were asked to make assignments of adjectives to categories based on their perceptions of which category was most likely to be described using each adjective. The 72 adjectives describing potential student-athlete stereotypes were selected from the larger set of 555 person adjectives developed by Anderson (1968) that are frequently used in psychological research (e.g., Larose, Tracy, & McKelvie, 1993;Loosemore & Tan, 2000;Owuamalam, Tarrant, Farrow, & Zagefka, 2013) using procedures outlined below.…”

Lean product development and agile project management in the construction industry

“…One of the greatest difficulties is that all this range of multidisciplinary professionals involved in the process as a whole has a limited capacity for rational decision making (Chun & Cho, 2018). This occurs for several reasons, from traditional conflicts between executors and designers (based on negative and strong stereotypes) (Loosemore & Tan, 2000) to several hidden agendas and power games involving many agents (Lohne, Svalestuen, Knotten, Drevland & Laedre, 2017).…”

The power of humour to unite and divide: a case study of design coordination meetings in construction

“…For example, the use of cultural differences between designers and constructors, which manifest themselves as stereotypes, was often a source of humour, which then functions to create positive cohesion and defuse potential conflict. This is particularly surprising because Loosemore and Tan (2000) identify the cultural relationships demonstrated by stereotypes, particularly between designers and constructors, as deep-rooted, strong and negative problems, which create the potential for conflict when these disciplines are required to work together. Although Eynon (2013) provides insights into the longstanding and opposing perspectives of designers and constructors as belonging to different "tribes", with their respective values, cultures and history, the multidisciplinary nature of the CLDMs may explain why these tribe divisions were not as evident in our findings.…”

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