Promoting organizational learning and project sustainability in the construction industry

The concept of organizational learning is receiving an increasing amount of attention in construction management research and practice. The importance of organizational learning is its potential impact on the improvement of organizational performance. The construction industry is of high economic significance and its projects have strong environmental and social impacts. There is need for sustainable change in the construction industry and the ability of construction organizations to cope with such change requires organization learning. However existing organizational learning methods in the industry such as post project review and post occupancy evaluation do not assess the completed project against the triple bottom line, as they focus on technical issues. The general area of investigation in this on-going PhD research is organizational learning and project sustainability in the construction industry. It explores the issues of organizational learning and maturity levels at which construction organizations can deliver sustainable projects. It reviews relevant literature and presents the results from an exploratory pilot study that interviewed experts in the industry to explore the state of the art in practice. The findings suggest a new strand of investigation for this on-going PhD; which is to examine the impact of leadership on organization’s ability to deliver sustainable construction projects irrespective of their level of maturity. The research shows that, there is a need in construction management research to further explore the link between organizational learning and sustainability; little research has been done linking organizational learning and sustainability in the construction industry. The research therefore identifies the need to develop a framework for implementing organizational learning for sustainable project delivery. The paper concludes by setting out a design for further work in this area.