CHAPTER 5

The Research Study Approach

Chapter 5 Introduction

In this chapter, we discuss some of the most relevant human behavior theoretical concepts relating to relationship based procurement choices. Figure 23 illustrates this chapter's structure.

This chapter is presented in four sections. This section introduces the study in general and is followed by a section that outlines the study approach, the worldview perspective of the researchers, the data gathering approach, and the validation approach. We then explain how we obtained data and information resources from reports, reflections on the literature, data gathered from interviews with SMEs and our own reflection on insights gained from previous and in-parallel research work. The chapter concludes with a chapter summary.

The Study Approach

We develop this section with a discussion of the perspective that we took in undertaking the research. We then explain our research methods, how we chose the literature and sources of information, and data for our study that we considered when determining which subject matter experts (SMEs) we should contact and discuss their view on this whole topic of RBP. We also justify our research approach with respect to which academic and practitioner SMEs we should interview and how we designed and undertook a validation workshop to seek feedback on our results.

The Researchers’ Perspective and Worldview

When undertaking research, it is necessary to be clear about the researchers’ perspective and worldview about the research being undertaken. We all see the world slightly differently and this is shaped by our experience and our interpretation of what we see. Differences in perception explain how we make sense of what we observe and what we believe to be the “truth” about what we see. They also explain how perceptions of truth between people can vary. Readers of this book can best understand the basis of our claims to the veracity of our findings and conclusions and the credibility of that work by understanding our worldview and how we value and attribute truth to evidence. Readers can make their own minds up, based on their worldview, on how convincing our conclusions and analysis are.

One aspect of our worldview is the prevailing paradigm that governs our thinking. According to Smyth and Morris (2007), a paradigm is an intellectual purposeful framework embodying systems of ideas and beliefs, sets of common assumptions, and accepted versions of the “truth.” Morgan (2007) states that many researchers use the term loosely. He describes the concept of a paradigm in the following way:

• paradigms being all-encompassing ways of experiencing and thinking about the world, including beliefs about morals, values, and aesthetics (p. 50);
• epistemological stances such as realism and constructivism as being distinctive belief systems that influence how research questions are asked and answered and taking a narrower approach by concentrating on one's worldview about issues within the philosophy of knowledge (p. 52);
• shared beliefs in a research field within a community of researchers sharing a consensus about which questions are most meaningful and which procedures are most appropriate for answering those questions (p. 53); and
• model examples that serve as “exemplars” for how research is done in a given field (p. 54).

Cicmil (2006, p. 30) provides a useful table to interpret PM knowledge. She refers to three types of paradigm in terms of knowledge. A functionalism/positivist paradigm is relevant to PM technical knowledge of how to control project activity. An interpretative paradigm relates to understanding practical knowledge, and a radical/critical paradigm is appropriate to knowledge about emancipatory or freedom issues. Creswell (2009, Chapter 1) describes four worldviews that add to our understanding of the paradigm concept that describe various philosophical stances as follows:

1. The positivism philosophical stance is about determination, reductionism, empirical observation and measurement and theory verification. It has a belief system that assumes that there is a rational and objective ‘truth’ that can be observed (independently) and exists because if we died this truth would still be “out there.”
2. The constructivism philosophical stance is about creating reality through interpretation. It is based on understanding some phenomena, with multiple participants’ meaning being seen as being valid and useful; it is a social contextual and historical construction of “truth” as something that is generated; and emergent as relevant data, information, knowledge, perceptions and interpretations are drawn together to make sense of a situation.
3. The advocacy/participatory philosophical stance is about understanding the politics of a phenomenon, the issue of which parties have various kinds and extents of power, how participants do or do not collaborate and how change occurs between relationship that affect the phenomenon.
4. The pragmatism philosophy stance is eclectic in that it seeks understanding from whatever means are at hand. It is concerned with the consequences of actions, is problem and solution centred and sees ‘real-world’ practices as being of critical importance. This worldview takes whatever insights and perspectives that are perceived as useful, workable and valuable in a practical sense.

It is useful to see the paradigm concept in terms of being a worldview. The worldview as a paradigm is useful because it helps us to work out what is necessary to satisfy the doubts and gather important evidence to justify an interpretation of “truth.” Worldview one above, having a positivism philosophical stance, has a need for “facts and figures,” “hard science,” and objectivity. Worldview two, having a constructivism philosophical stance, is all about relationships and interpretations about what can be supported as ‘truth’ by strength of arguments. It has entirely different criteria for determining or accepting what is “truth” to the first view. Worldview three, having an advocacy/participatory philosophical stance, has a highly social and relational perspective of what is valid and what is truth. This takes in a stance that strongly refutes the validity of independence, in fact it stresses that politics, power, motivation are all crucial to determining “truth.” Worldview four, having a pragmatism philosophical stance, is highly eclectic and makes use of whatever evidence and support is useful, be that positivist evidence, advocacy or constructivism. From this we can see what constitutes “real” evidence and how to design a way to best support understanding of “finding the truth” rooted in an appropriate paradigm.

Before we explain our research findings from the literature and from interviews with SMEs, we need to clarify three other aspects of how we see the world. We will now explain our ontological position, our epistemological stance. and our axiological values. This will provide readers with a better understanding of what we include and exclude in our discussions and what we offer as exemplar models, as well as how we judge the validity and usefulness of what we present.

The term ontology is usually understood as a worldview about what constitutes “truth,” what is “out there” to know (Grix, 2002, p. 175). Grix (2002, p. 177) further explains that “ontological positions are those contained within the perspectives ‘objectivism’ and ‘constructivism’.” Broadly speaking, the objectivism perspective holds “an ontological position that asserts that social phenomena and their meanings have an existence that is independent of social actors.” In other words, we can be positive that the objective truth exists. The constructivism perspective, on the other hand, asserts that social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors. In other words, truth is subjective and is socially agreed to be true. An objectivist perspective leads toward a positivist ontological stance in which truth is objectively out there whether we are alive or not.

People with constructivist ontology will believe that knowledge about what is true or valid is constructed in the mind and is influenced by perceptions gained though a particular viewing lens. That lens could be from being an individual within a group of people, from a shared group view within a larger organization, or from a shared view of one organization within a project team composed of and represented by numerous organizations. A constructivist ontological stance holds that truth is not objectively real and is, therefore, subjectively real. Truth is a complex concept about belief in something because we tend to interpret what we see in way that is influenced in many ways. For example, if we are studying how people in an organization view a particular phenomenon, there may be quite different perspectives held from people who are engaged in working directly for the organization. They may be employed full-time or part-time, employed as volunteers, as interns, or as contingent employees working on projects as an independent contractor. There can be a range of ways to interpret the organization as perceived by those employed in it.

We are faced now with having to be clear about what we mean by reality, which of many possible perspectives is being taken. We, therefore, take an ontological position when studying anything and by recognizing that position, we have a responsibility to state our position. Researchers may use data from records of how many people are employed in various categories of employment and thus state they are taking an objective ontological stance, state from the overall organizational ontological perspective. However, if they are studying how people “feel” about the organization based on interviews, then they are taking an interpretivist or constructivist ontological stance of a firm from individual, project team, and home-organization ontological perspectives, because the questions they ask and the answers they get have to be interpreted in both the participant's and researcher's mind. The certainty of “truth” is contestable, and we need to be clear of both the perspective taken and the means by which data is obtained and analyzed.

Grix (2002, p. 177) states that “epistemology focuses on the knowledge-gathering process and is concerned with developing new models or theories that are better than competing models and theories.” Epistemology is about taking a view of how evidence is accepted as “truth” and the “validly” of that view. A positivist ontological stance relies on the authority and epistemology of the scientific method to maintain what are accepted ways of identifying, measuring, and analyzing data. These ways evolve and are improved upon continuously; they are by no means static. An interpretivist ontological stance relies on the evolving epistemology of social science theories when identifying, measuring, and analyzing data. Considerable debate continuously rages about techniques and methods to undertake research. In essence, there is acceptance that there “is no absolute truth,” therefore, a body or chain of evidence is used to demonstrate the credibility of evidence and analysis to support a position on what is as close as is practicably possible to the “absolute truth” within a specified epistemological tradition or school of thought.

The term axiology, according to Mingers (2003, p. 561), is about the values held that are important to the research, “that is, what is valued or considered good. This is manifest in what the purposes or uses of the model are, and who (analyst, facilitator, participant) develops and uses the model.” Axiology considers the aesthetic qualities of perspective. For example, a positivist stance may see beauty in the elegance of parsimonious formulae describing a phenomenon, whereas an interpretivist stance would find beauty in understanding context, and an advocacy/participatory stance would judge use of power or distribution of pain/gain as being the main criteria for an axiological stance.

Table 8.   Our research perspective and worldview

While the term paradigm as a “worldview” and embodying systems of ideas and beliefs is a short and neat way to describe the term, it leaves gaps in precision. Slicing and dicing the term into its components of ontology, epistemology, and axiology can add some precision, but can also add confusion. Precision is something that we needed to address in stating our worldview in the research reported in this book. Table 8 summaries our perspective and worldview.

The Data and Information-Gathering Approach

Our data resources are global in nature and comprise government and industry reports; reflections on the literature; interviews with SMEs, both academic and reflective practitioners; and our own insights from our previous and current related research projects. In all, we interviewed 50 SMEs and this generated over 500 pages of transcripts that we analyzed. Details of the interviewees are presented in Section 2 Table A2.

Based on our research perspective and worldview we sought data and information from SMEs who were either academic-researchers or reflective practitioners. For this research, we are taking the perspective of SMEs and their reflections on their experience as our data source, rather than gathering data from specific case studies, surveys. or other empirical evidence. We draw upon the literature discussed earlier, reflect on our own research in this area from over the past decade, including transcripts and notes taken from SMEs who we had previously interviewed as part of earlier research. These were either academic or practitioner SMEs; however, many of those interviewed were both academic and active practitioners. We detail these sources of data and information in more detail shortly.

We purposefully favored practitioner SMEs who had experience of project alliance forms of RBP. This is because we agree with Paulk et al. (1993) that maturity development in experience is hierarchal. People, when operating at one level are unable to clearly understand the next level, rather like reaching halfway up a hill but there is a valley and beyond that another hill that is barely visible. They can clearly see and understand in a backward direction and are aware of gaps between where they currently are and where “lower” levels are situated, but they are unclear about what the “next level” really looks like. Using this logic, we felt that from the literature and our prior research findings that alliancing approximates the highest RBP maturity that we can envisage (though we concede that T5, for example, has SCM elements that may be more advanced in thinking about RBP than is present in many alliance agreements). Therefore, SMEs with experience of alliancing are better placed to situate other forms of project procurement and delivery in a viable context that those who have no experience of alliancing approaches.

We sought and were given ethics clearance from RMIT University, and the plain-language statement and questions asked are included in Section 2, Appendix 1 immediately after Table A3. This provides a list of the semi-structured open ended questions asked of academic SMEs as well as general practitioner SMEs and practitioners who had been engaged in project and/or program alliances.

Validation Approach

It is also important for the reader to understand how we justify the validity of our findings and our interpretation of their meaning and significance. We clarify our approach to validating the interpretation of our findings. We presented preliminary conclusions at several conference forums and by distributing draft versions of this book to academic and practitioner SMEs for feedback. And we responded to their comments and improved the manuscript accordingly. Conference presentations generated debate and provided opportunities for our findings to be challenged through additional informal discussion with SMEs to clarify, elaborate, and calibrate results.

While it is fair to say that challenge and debate is limited during “question time” at most conferences, it would be true to state that far more useful insightful and thought-provoking confronting feedback is generally gained from subsequent conversations with conference attendees after question time. In our case, several PhD candidates and their supervisors who were undertaking research into related topics questioned us, and often their questions were both penetrating and sophisticated. This is because they are deeply engaged in this research area and they fervently needed to know precise details of our research approach, data source reliability, and level of validation.

We also undertook one validation workshop at Oxford on 2 October 2013 with 14 PA SMEs. We presented another validation workshop on 4 October with 24 SME practitioners from the Cabinet Office Major Projects Authority and Office of National Audit Office (U.K.) in Whitehall, London, U.K., to present our analysis and to seek their comment and reflection. These workshops were undertaken purposefully to expose our findings and to allow them to be challenged. This allowed us the opportunity to explain ourselves and in doing to improve our internalization of “knowing” and to re-calibrate where appropriate our understanding of this whole topic. Feedback from both workshops particularly provided added insightful comments and challenging questions surrounding Figure 25. Categorizing Collaboration Forms of PM Delivery and Figure 27. An RBP Wittgenstein's Idea of Family and the KSAE framework presented in Table 6. Three Experiences and Seven Characteristics/Attributes Required of AMs (Source: Walker and Lloyd-Walker, 2011a, p. 12–15). The main reaction by these SMEs was that these models and the framework provided useful and acceptably credible reflections on how forms of RBP could be visualized, and that the KSAE required of project managers engaged in these types of project provided a very useful framework for participant and leadership staff selection as well as appraisal and skills development. Many of the SMEs felt that the models were more generally useful than RBP forms and that they could be applied across a broad range of project procurement types with well identified specific KSAE for each of the identified project procurement classifications, such as for PAs business-as-usual D&C, for example.

In addition, we have written several journal papers and a book chapter from this extended research, and these sources all provided feedback, peer review, and SME review. Details of these validation opportunities are summarized briefly outlined in Appendix 1 Table 1.

Data and Information resources

The following outlines the sources of data and information that we drew upon:

Government and Industry Reports

We accessed a number of government reports that justified the need for changes to project procurement. Two of the most widely cited reports from the U.K. experience that we reviewed were the Latham (1994) and Egan (1998) reports, and we also studied follow-up reports (Egan, 2002; Wolstenholme, 2009) from think-tanks and quasi-government department entities that provided high level research, usually undertaken by well-regarded researchers in the PM and construction/engineering field and/or reflective practitioners of influence.

The U.K. has also been able to provide us with valuable sources of data and information on relevant specific topics, such as the stage gate system of project assessment and approval at the project front-end (Office of Government Commerce, 2007b; 2007c). Several Australian government departments have been an important promoter of project alliances and how to ensure and pursue VfM (Department of Treasury and Finance Victoria, 2010; Department of Infrastructure and Transport, 2011). We also closely scrutinized a doctoral thesis (MacDonald, 2011) that was supervised by one of this book's authors that had a very detailed summary and analysis of VfM normative processes. Additionally, we drew upon a meta-analysis of reports from the U.K. between 1948-1998 that had been published that paints a very vivid contextual picture of attempts to escape from the traditional procurement choices that led to poor collaboration by construction project teams (Murray & Langford, 2003).

Australian government departments, think-tanks and various association has also provided deep insights into the context of RBP and evolving best practice in collaboration forms (CIDA, 1993a; 1994; CIIA, 1995). Auditor General reports in Australia also provided highly credible data, for example in gathering background information for an alliance project in Australia (Auditor-General of the Australian National Audit Office, 2000) that one of this book's authors was deeply involved with as a research study that had significant sets of findings being published in a book (Walker & Hampson, 2003c) and we also used a useful report (Australian Constructors Association, 1999) to inform us about the history of project alliancing and how it developed in Australia.

We were able to access reports and guidelines on the integrated project delivery in the USA from two important sources (American Institute of Architects - AIA California Council, 2007; Cohen, 2010). We were also able to source a very informative report that provided us with detailed context and information about procurement in the EU through a major collaborative research project led by the Manchester Business School (2009a; 2009b; 2009c) and through the report on large-scale infrastructure projects in Europe (Hertogh, Baker, Staal-Ong, & Westerveld, 2008).

Reflections on the Literature

Our literature review in chapters 2, 3, and 4 was based mainly on peer reviewed journal articles sources and books. We occasionally cited conference papers where these had not been (to our knowledge) updated and upgraded to journal papers. We were purposeful and cautious in our choice of literature to review and cite to enable confidence that these were indeed authoritative sources. There were instances of books that were published that provide seminal details that provided valuable historical and contextual information, for example the book on the London Heathrow T5 project (Doherty, 2008).

We also ensured that we considered relevant doctoral thesis work, as this provides highly valuable and insightful leading-edge content. Some of these were supervised by one of the authors (Derek Walker), and so the insights are deeper than would be the case for reading a thesis. Theses were directly about topics on RBP forms (Davis, 2006; Johannes, 2004; MacDonald, 2011) as well as wider issues concerning PM in a wider but relevant context to RBP (Nogeste, 2006; Norrie, 2006; Christenson, 2007). We also accessed and read other relevant theses that informed, and was very important, for our reflections on RBP (Ahola, 2009; Hoezen, 2012; Klakegg, 2010; Nyström, 2005b; 2007).

These academic sources provided a wealth of previous work that had been thoroughly researched, was rigorously validated through peer review, doctoral examination or by other similarly rigorous means. We have been both intensely engaged in research and writing for several decades and have had many papers, book chapters, and research reports published, and so we have spent many years thinking about, writing on, searching for literature on, and reflecting on RBP and its impact on strategic HRM and skills development implications. This depth of thought, applied with a renewed focus for this book, has allowed us to apply fundamental and summative reflection on this field of study.

Interviews with Academics and Practitioner SMEs

It has been our experience over several decades that research colleagues have consistently told us that when researchers undertake any significant volume of research, they often sense that the process of dissemination is often incomplete with papers being perhaps rejected and other papers started but not completed to the publication stage. Interesting avenues of further exploration and sensemaking are also abandoned due to time and resource constraints. Additionally, an author will often reflect upon a paper after some time and draw alternative conclusions to that originally published by them. This reflection is based upon their reflection and the influence of subsequent research and literature reviews upon their views. This represents untapped reserves of data and knowledge that we sought.

Part of the rationale for undertaking this research was to take advantage of the above hidden sources of insights. We proposed in our research grant application to the PMI, that underpins this book, to speak to a range of SMEs, both academic and practitioner, and to question them about their work, what was missing from the published versions of their work that they wished to explore through dialogue with us and to express their (expert) opinion of trends and directions in which RBP is heading. In this way, for our academic interviewees, we were taking a retrospective reflection upon past research, connecting it to the present and projecting it into the future. This delivered to us deeper access to past knowledge, re-framed current knowledge and hypothesised or speculated knowledge of the future.

We also pursued a similar strategy with practitioner SMEs, except that many of them had not directly published their opinions, views, and experiences of their lived reality of being a PM practitioner engaged in RBP forms. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and copies were sent to them to make any clarifying comments or observations and to add any further data. An outline of the interviewee perspective and rationale for choosing them is presented in Appendix 1, Table A2 of Section 2. In addition to those specifically interviewed for the research project funded by PMI, we also interviewed practitioners in a series of case studies that formed part of the work undertaken on a parallel research project into project alliancing in Australia. This gave us an opportunity to gather additional insights into the working ambience of the PAs studied as well as to ask information about the necessary skills, knowledge, attributes, and experience required of PA team members.

The data gathered from notes and transcribed interviews (500+ pages) were used with the software package NVivo10 to develop and code themes and subthemes using a grounded theory approach (Corbin, Strauss, & Strauss, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Locke, 2001) to help us make sense of content related to the four research questions. We were able to interview and gather data from 14 leading academic SMEs and 36 senior SME practitioners.

SME Insights from our own Past and Current Research

We also had the advantage of having already researched and published on several related research projects in the past and were able to combine reflection upon these along with current case study work on project alliances undertaken as part of a related and complementary study. These are briefly outlined in Appendix 1 Table 1.

In addition, we were able to inform this book's content and our research with other self-funded and ad hoc research with other colleagues as part of our normal scholarly duties. For example, Beverley Lloyd-Walker undertook research with others on career development of AMs and their transitioning in and out of projects. All the above intellectual property was able to be marshaled to inform this research project and writing this book.

Chapter 5 Summary

While for some readers, this chapter may not be as interesting as others, it was essential that we explain our research study approach and our worldview in undertaking the study. We explicitly state our perspective, operating paradigm and our ontological, epistemological, and axiological stances so that readers may fully understand our rationale and approach to undertaking this study. We presented our validation and feedback approach that are detailed in Appendix 1 Table 1 in Section 2, as well as coded summary information to indicate the sources of subject matter experts that we interviewed in Appendix 1, Table A2, Section 2, and in Appendix 1, Table A3, Section 2 we presented a summary of previous and concurrent studies that we drew upon to inform our research and this publication.

Our aim has been to clearly and transparently present in this chapter how we undertook the research and what influences shaped our conclusions.