Disorganising Bureaucracies

Den 13-14 november deltager jeg i Center for Ledelse i Byggeriet's årlige konference om ledelse i byggeriet. Her skal jeg præsentere et arbejdspapir med titlen Disorganising Bureaucracies. Artiklen er stort set skrevet, men er endnu ikke klar til offentliggørelse. Ambitionen er at den på tidspunkt kan blive optaget i et passende tidsskrift. Abstract lyder som følger:

Background. In Denmark, on 1 January 2007, BEK no. 1365 entered into force. BEK 1365 is a public declaration intended to regulate the use of ICT in construction. Annexed to the declaration are ’ten commandments’ – demands that public clients have to enforce upon private firms competing for contracts. Command 5b dictates the public client to request that the design team produces a 3D building model. The building model must be object oriented and exchangeable via the IFC-format. The goal of the initiative – Digital Construction – is to spark efficiency in construction by introducing information and communication technology.

Problem. Several Danish practices rush to 3D digital modelling in response to, among others, public clients’ request for 3D building models. In the transition from 2D CAD (Computer Aided Design) to 3D BIM (Building Information Modelling) several complicated issues call for the attention of partners and e.g. CAD managers. Object oriented modelling challenge existing work procedures, methods and routines and puts strain on the users’ competences, e.g. their capacity to ‘work around’, to communicate and coordinate, to structure creative processes. Along with the debatable advantages of building modelling comes a plethora of challenges, namely the unforeseeable effects of socio-material associations. Sometimes 3D modelling transforms practice in surprising ways.

Research question. How does real bureaucracies’ (government agencies, i.e.) action vis-à-vis digitalization of construction effect the order of work in the design phase; what does it mean in relation to the management of competences.

Test-bed. 20+ explorative 2 hours (average) interviews – transcribed and analysed; approx. 40 hours of observation (video-observiews, face-to-face interaction / dialogue; a database of Q&A’s from a representational (41% return) sample of 269 architects, engineers, clients, etc. Collected between 2007-2008.

Methods assemblage. Inspired by a breed of alternative methodologies my research strategy draws on actor-network theory (ANT), taking an ontologically relativist, yet empirically realist approach. To that end concepts such as symmetry, actantiality, network, translation, mediation, association, the fluid and the fractal, embodiment and enactment are introduced.