Cross cultural training and the effective integration of the construction supply chain
Most professionals working within the UK construction industry are familiar with the recommendations of both the Latham and Egan reports, their conclusions called for improvement to the service that the construction industry delivers both for its clients and for the profitability of the enterprises...
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University College London (University of London)
2007
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| Online Access: | http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686676 |
| Summary: | Most professionals working within the UK construction industry are familiar with the recommendations of both the Latham and Egan reports, their conclusions called for improvement to the service that the construction industry delivers both for its clients and for the profitability of the enterprises involved. Their recommendations were the impetus for the drive within the industry to use strategic partnering as a replacement for competitive tendering and supply chain management as a means of improving the design process and reducing conflict, in order to achieve greater integration between enterprises involved in business transactions within the construction supply chain. It is however noteworthy that to date few suggestions have been made as to how to achiev e integration of partner enterprises and project teams once an agreement is made or a team formed and thus this paper seeks to investigate why fragmentation is necessary how it adds value to the overall labour process how cross-cultural training techniques can be used as a structured means of achieving the integration of partner enterprises or project teams by reducing conflict. The investigation will follow several paths. First it aims to identify the barriers to successful integration of enterprises within the construction supply chain. Second it reviews the various different techniques by which cross-cultural training is currently carried out and its effectiveness as an assimilation tool. Thirdly it looks at the effectiveness of the application of cross-cultural training in the construction context through an action research exercise carried out on a live project. |
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