Managing construction project change in the knowledge age: A case study

Changes in construction projects are common and can lead to disruptive effects such as project delays, cost overruns and quality deviations. The rework due to unplanned changes can cost 10-15% of contract value. By managing these changes more effectively, these disruptive effects can be minimised or avoided. Previous work has approached this research problem from an information-processing view with the introduction of hard IT based solutions. In this knowledge age, this study argues that effective change management can be brought about by understanding the significant role of knowledge during shared activities such as change problem-solving. In managing change the construction team members bring their tacit and explicit knowledge into the problem situation and it is this knowledge that is captured, converted and shared between the parties during the change process. As such, the study aims to explore the role of knowledge during managing project change in collaborative team settings. The case study method has been selected as the research approach for theory building and testing. The interim findings of the first case study revealed that the different forms of knowledge are created during shared problem-solving activities during construction change events. However, this knowledge remains largely tacit and does not disseminate to the wider organisation due to ineffective codification and learning mechanisms.