Knowledge creation capability & absorptive capacity of integrated project teams in the construction industry

The primary aim of this proposal is to understand how the utilisation of 'social capital' influences knowledge creation capability and absorptive capacity of integrated project teams in the construction industry. Social capital, knowledge creation capability and absorptive capacity are extremely specialised terms but they represent the relationships between members of a project team, and the common activities that they take part in daily. An analogy with the family, the smallest social unit, would help understand these terms. The father, the mother, the siblings (if any), relatives; personal and family friends; and anybody else that can be approached through these people form the 'social capital' of, for example, a daughter. Knowledge creation capability is her ability to come up with unusual solutions to problems or to improve the way she completes certain tasks, for example her homework. Her absorptive capacity represents her ability to learn from others within and outside her family or class. All these three factors help her to perform well in the tasks that she undertakes. Let us assume that this family lives in the Peak District and it has been chosen to represent their village in a well-dressing competition. Three families from three other villages will take part in this competition. The teams are encouraged to try to come up with an unusual well-dressing within the cost, time and quality limitations. The teams should also try to break the conventions in well-dressing; hence break a tradition which is thought to have originated from Pagan times. This is a challenging thing to do, as trying to change the way things are done by project teams in The UK Construction Industry is. Each team has a member who knows all about conventional well-dressings but these members cannot pinpoint how conventions can be broken. The team needs to learn more. This project is divided into four work-packages (WPs) that would help the research team understand how these families achieve their objective of breaking the norms and why one family could be more creative than the others; and pass the message onto others. Researchers join the families in this competition in order to gain this understanding. WP1 sets the ground rules for the competition. The teams identify what makes up their 'social capital' and whether they are fully utilising their 'social capital' in WP2. WP3 aims at analysing how these families break the conventions in well-dressing, how their 'social capital' and 'absorptive capacity' influence this process, how their creativity can be improved by using some guidance tools; and the development of these tools. Each team member is asked to give feedback on these tools. WP5 is devoted to demonstrations in neighbouring villages to show that these tools could help families break the convention in next year's competition