What does the construction foreman do?

Despite his acknowledged role in the execution of construction projects, the crew foreman's function has received little attention. The study described here tries to answer three questions: How does the foreman divide his workday time and on what subjects? With whom does he communicate? Can a correlation be detected between the way he divides his time and the performance of his crew? The research is based on a sample of 24 foremen in the USA and 32 in Israel. The findings throw more light on the perennial discussion to what extent the foreman is manager or supervisor, and whether one can replace replanning with preplanning.