Becoming Collaborative: Enhancing the Understanding of Intra-Organisational Relational Dynamics

BECOMING COLLABORATIVE: ENHANCING THE UNDERSTANDING OF INTRA-ORGANISATIONAL RELATIONAL DYNAMICS by Eloise Grove A Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the Engineering Doctorate (EngD) degree, of Loughborough University July 2018 © by Eloise Grove (2018) Centre for Innovative and Collaborative Engineering (CICE) Department of Architecture, Civil & Building Engineering Loughborough University Loughborough Leics, LE11 3TU Acknowledgements ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank all the people at my Sponsoring organisation who have participated directly and indirectly in this research over the years. Not only have you provided me with the valuable material necessary but you have offered friendship that has made your place of work such an enjoyable place for me to be. Your candid contributions never cease to amaze me and for your trust I am truly grateful. Thanks to my supervisors at Loughborough University for their words of wisdom and encouragement. I’ve been connected to the School of Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering on and off since 2008. Whilst I’ve never been permanently based there I have always felt like I belong. I therefore extend this thanks to the wider team at ACBE – you make it a special place to learn. Thank you to all my industrial supervisors (there have been many) for their guidance, with special thanks to Lisa for, in her words, being the best industrial supervisor in the history of industrial supervisors. She’s kind of a big deal. For the hours upon hours of proof reading, not only throughout the years of this study but for all the homework, assignments, applications and papers that have got me to this stage in my life. Mum, you are wonderful. I could not have completed this project without the unfaltering support and love of my husband. He has packed his bags, moved cities and taken time out of his own career to raise our babies so that I could pursue my doctoral ambitions. For Steve – I think you’d be proud. i BECOMING COLLABORATIVE: ENHANCING THE UNDERSTANDING OF INTRA- ORGANISATIONAL RELATIONAL DYNAMICS ABSTRACT Managing the delivery of highway maintenance and management is complex. A multi-faceted and highly reactive service provision requires the coordination of an interconnected web of intra-organisational inputs. Collaborative approaches for the management of such complexity has attracted a great deal of research attention over the years but there remains a lack of research examining collaboration “in flight”. In Construction Management Research (CMR) studies orientate toward antecedents and processes for the application of a collaborative approach. Practically, contracts are used to govern these works, to coordinate expectations, and to structure relationships, with most of the work procured under transactional, non- collaborative and financially punitive forms of contract, which makes the enactment of collaborative working practices even more challenging. To investigate how collaborative approaches to service delivery might improve performance, this study examines the conditions that render collaboration operable when deployed within non-collaborative delivery frameworks. To aid this understanding the theoretical lens of institutionalisation, a theory underutilised in CMR, is used to unravel the multiplicity of factors acting to both support and erode collaborative working practice as observed at the micro level. Typically, institutional theorists examine micro and macro elements separately. Through a longitudinal case study consisting of four and a half years of participant observation, this study adopts an approach to examine micro-practices of collaborative behaviour to reveal how collaboration plays out in practice, leading to an understanding of how collaboration is shaped by macro- institutional logics. Through the lens of institutionalisation this study supports a reconceptualisation of collaboration, not as an exceptional event, but as an ongoing journey of accomplishment. This work follows the observations of three improvement initiatives designed to enhance collaborative working for the purposes of service improvement. Early findings revealed formalised collaborative efforts improved performance but benefits realised remained localised. Bringing people together to collectively work through an isolated issue did not automatically lead to more or better collaboration. Pockets of collaborative efforts were found to be unsupported by wider governance mechanisms leading to short term interventions, unsustainable over time. Using institutionalisation to make sense of the observations revealed tensions between regulatory and cognitive/normative institutional logics; tensions that were observed to impact negatively on service delivery, particularly ii Abstract given the non-relational contractual arrangements employed to procure and govern service provision. For example, cognitive logics to engage in collaborative solutions were overshadowed by logics that put commercial needs front and centre. Contrary to the dominant discourse in CMR that describes how collaborative interventions can be applied to positively impact project performance, this research reveals the need for sustained collaborative effort. Whilst other work in the field deterministically positions relationships (collaborative or otherwise) as a product of contractual arrangements, findings here suggest collaborative behaviours can thrive in unfavourable contract mechanisms. As such, this work proposes a framework for an alternative approach to supporting collaboration that addresses the failure to recognise conflicting logics, understand why conflict arises and effectively manage the consequences, particularly in adversarial environments. KEYWORDS: Collaboration, contractual arrangements, institutional theory, micro- practices, process improvement, relationship management iii BECOMING COLLABORATIVE: ENHANCING THE UNDERSTANDING OF INTRA- ORGANISATIONAL RELATIONAL DYNAMICS PREFACE The research presented in this thesis was conducted to fulfil the requirements of an Engineering Doctorate (EngD) at the Centre of Innovative Construction Engineering (CICE), Loughborough University. The research programme was supervised by CICE and funded by the Engineering Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), supplemented by an Industrial Sponsor who shall, by their request, remain anonymous. The EngD is a well-recognised post-graduate qualification satisfying a different research need to that of a traditional PhD with the core aim of the EngD being to solve one or more significant and challenging problems within an applied engineering industrial context. The EngD is examined on the basis of a thesis supported by academic publications in the form of peer reviewed conference and journal papers. This thesis is supported by one journal and four conference papers which have been numbered 1 to 5 for ease of reference and are included as Appendices A to E of this thesis. These papers support specific work items within the overall programme and are provided as a reference for further reading and in support of the EngD research presented. In addition to this thesis, the taught element of the EngD has been satisfied through the attainment of 180 credits gained through the completion of six modules, including a 90 credit research project, plus a 40 credit exemption for MSc post graduate courses already completed. As well as setting out the structural background to the thesis in this preface, I feel it is of importance and relevance to explain to the reader the journey this research has taken. Having previously expressed an interest in the EngD programme, I began my EngD journey early in 2011 when I was invited by the CICE to apply for a specific EngD position that had been developed jointly by the CICE and the Sponsor organisation. After a successful application process, I relocated in October 2011 to take up the placement within the Sponsoring organisation. Daily guidance was provided to me by an industrial supervisor (an employee of the Sponsoring organisation) with academic support provided by regular contact with academic research supervisors based at Loughborough University. This arrangement was to ensure the EngD research was industrially focused yet maintained a high level of iv Preface academic rigour. There are three important points here that hold significant implications for the development of this research and I would like to emphasise them further. Firstly, this research project started almost seven years ago. In that time I have taken two periods of maternity leave. The journey this project has taken over time has been determined to varying degrees by the changing needs of all the project stakeholders, but most notably the Sponsor organisation. The economic and political climate has changed, there is a new CEO at the helm, mergers and acquisitions have shaped the company and contracts and projects have begun and ended, all of which have affected the strategies of the sponsor organisation. This has had knock on effects for my research which seeks to understand how macro factors affect collaboration at the micro-level and I have had to make conscious decisions to account for these changes. Secondly, the original EngD brief was developed prior to my appointment as the researcher, the implication being that I spent the first few months developing a research strategy to satisfy a predetermined approach. As this thesis will go on to explain, this created challenges in the early stages

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