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Cummins, A, Graham, B, Thomas, K and Lucey, T (2016) The Effectiveness of Managing Through Trust the Middle Management Layer of a Construction Company: Proposed Ethnographic Research. In: Chan, P W and Neilson, C J (Eds.), Proceedings 32nd Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2016, Manchester UK. Association of Researchers in Construction Management, 943–952.

  • Type: Conference Proceedings
  • Keywords: Middle Management, Trust, Construction Company, Ethnographic Research
  • ISBN/ISSN: 978-0-9955463-0-1
  • URL: http://www.arcom.ac.uk/-docs/proceedings/76aef278e74ca37f4fde552277fbdf91.pdf
  • Abstract:

    The Irish construction sector has experienced a sever contraction over the past years and is now experiencing the initial stages of recovery. Inevitably, completion within the sector will increase as the market grows. Great emphasis is required to differentiate each company from their competition. Within this constrictive market, the key differentiating factors between competing organisations are the people they employ and the way in which these employees are managed. The middle management layer of an Irish construction firm is that of the site / project manager. In addition to the direct management of the main turnover source of the company, the construction project, it is with the site managers that the main interaction at the organisations boundary occurs with the external environment. Clients, consultants, the public and architects as an example, will all frequently interact with the project manager. The importance of middle managers in the construction organisation, aside from turnover, is therefore intrinsically linked to the perception developed by the many members of that external environment and in turn to the overall organisations success. However, while there is a perceived deficit in the area of research into the middle management layer in a construction firm, the maximisation of the potential of this middle management layer should be a critical objective of any senior manager. The importance of trust and its most appropriate form of adoption to the construction organisation as a management tool in maximising the potential of middle managers is to be investigated, through the use of constructive ethnographic research within a leading firm in the Irish construction sector. While ethnographic research may be more common in other industries, its suitability to the construction sector has been identified and employee status within a construction organisation will allow triangulation of the research to provide greater validation of the conclusions.