Editorial: objects, knowledge sharing and knowledge transformation in projects

Taylor and Francis RCME_A_495850.sgm 10.1080/01 46193 2010.495850 Const uction Manage ent and Economics 0144-6193 (pri t)/1466-433x (online) Original Article 2 10 & Francis 8 6 0 002 0 Prof. MikeBresnen mike.bresnen@mbs.ac.uk It is perhaps ironic that an industry so steeped in the production of our material environment and so inclined towards the use of material artefacts to assist in the process of construction should have had so little attention directed towards the role that these material objects play in enabling the knowledge creation, sharing and transformation that goes towards producing our built environment. Yet, it is only comparatively recently that an enthusiasm for the development of new tools and techniques to improve the construction process has been accompanied by fuller consideration of the ways in which these tools and techniques may actively constitute, or otherwise contribute towards, the total ‘activity system’ (cf. Engeström, 2001) of a construction project or programme (e.g. Suchman, 2000). There has, of course, been a considerable amount of interest shown in understanding the construction process as a socio-technical system since early work at the Tavistock Institute in the 1960s (e.g. Higgin and Jessop, 1965; Crichton, 1966). This work was important in questioning the supposed socially neutral effects of technology and the determinism that can be associated with its application. In other words, that technological and social systems need to be understood as being part of a complex and dynamic interdependent system that has important implications for the efficacy of different modes of organization and management practice. Such an approach persists, of course, and can throw important light on how human and material systems interact—in the motivation to engage with knowledge management systems or health and safety practices, for example. However, it takes a view on the interface between the social and the technological that tends to draw a very clear boundary between the two and which therefore persists in treating them as quite distinct, albeit inter-related, domains of knowledge and objects of study. Such ontological certainty about the ability to separate the human and material realm is rather less apparent in more recent developments in some areas of organizational theory (OT). Inspired by work within science and technology studies (STS), such developments have placed much more emphasis on the importance of material objects in the organization and management process (Zeiss and Groenewegen, 2009). Indeed, many researchers in construction management have begun to explore in much more detail how material objects may be implicated in the processes involved in the construction of a building and in the constitution of the project organization and management team set up to build it (e.g. Harty, 2005; Whyte et al ., 2007; Georg and Tryggestad, 2009). These and other important forays into the realm of the material emphasize the value of drawing upon a range of perspectives in organizational and management theory and research which, although sometimes regarded as controversial, have nevertheless something very important to say about materiality in organization and management processes. This special issue therefore responds to other recent calls for construction management theory and research to engage with and draw upon (and also contribute towards) knowledge about organization and management more generally (e.g. Bresnen et al ., 2005; Chan and Räisänen, 2009). It is with examining such alternative perspectives on the role of objects and technologies and exploring the implications they have for understanding the construction management process that this special issue is principally concerned.