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EDITORIAL New research

paradigms
New research paradigms
in the built environment
5
Richard Fellows
Department of Civil and Building Engineering, Loughborough University,
Loughborough, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review aspects of innovation, research and development
paradigms and paradigmatic changes which have occurred in construction over recent years.
Design/methodology/approach – The approach combines reviewing literature and some theory
within the context of the author’s experiences as a participant in the construction industry and
associated research and education.
Findings – The paper concludes that much has been re-cycled, often under amended titles. There is
notable scope and advisability in paradigm shifts from reductionist/determinist approaches to
stochastic approaches which accommodate complexities of interdependencies plus moves from “hard”
positivism to “softer” constructivist perspectives.
Research limitations/implications – The paper is limited in validity and reliability due to the
methods employed. However, the conclusion does stress the essential of researchers being aware of
and articulating the limitations of their work; the need for sound theoretical foundations is stressed in
regard to both topics and methods.
Practical implications – Proper examinations of research, including ontologies, epistemologies,
validities and reliabilities, as well as the topics under investigation, promotes good research and its
application and avoids recycling of “popular” topics in periodically amended guises.
Originality/value – The paper expresses the author’s original views, developed over a quite
extensive and varied career; however, it expresses views held fairly widely but seldom expressed
beyond “closed doors”.
Keywords Innovation, Research and development, Research methods, Epistemology,
Construction industry
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
In 1982, Peter Brandon called for a “paradigm shift” in the research and practice
of determining building costs (Brandon, 1982) – that was one of the first public
pronouncements of the drastic need for radical change in how construction processes are
researched and practiced. At that time, it seemed that the terms were not well
appreciated, nor the alleged needs, particularly clear. However, in the years since
Brandon’s call, innovations have taken place and “new paradigms” have appeared but

The author is very grateful to the large number of colleagues whose views, freely given in
discussions over the years, have helped to inform what is expressed in this paper. The intent is to
Construction Innovation
be helpful, if somewhat provocative, to further the discipline area in which the author has so Vol. 10 No. 1, 2010
enjoyed working with many wonderful people – for this the author gives sincere thanks. The pp. 5-13
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
author takes full, personal responsibility for the views expressed in this paper and for any and all 1471-4175
errors/omissions. DOI 10.1108/14714171011017545
CI the questions remain of how far we have come – how much has our knowledge
developed and to what extent have our methods improved to benefit humankind?
10,1 One of the most pervasive “new paradigms” is the so-called “Japanese
management” – so-called because its origins lie in statisticians and management
theorists from the USA, notably, Shewhart (1931), Juran and Gryna (1988) and Deming
(1986). The labelling of “Japanese” is through adoption, development and adaptations
6 of the theories, principles and practices to suit Japanese cultures. So, approaches to
management including just-in-time; quality circles and total quality management
(TQM); lean; and benchmarking have become very popular within and beyond
the shores of Japan and across many industries, including those relating to the built
environment. Indeed, in a number of countries, initiatives by research funding
institutions (e.g. UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) have
concerned investigation of applicability of Japanese management and of construction’s
adopting processes used in other industries – especially, automotive and aerospace.
What is vital in all paradigms is to appreciate that merely adopting the principles
and practices is not the end in itself and does not guarantee success – it is the human
elements which are critical and none more so than thorough cultural adaptations, and
understanding and support by those at the top of the management structure.
There is also a philosophical essential, often expressed as an element of Japanese
management, continuous improvement. Only by constantly striving to carry out
processes/services and to output products which are better than those current, can we
avoid complacency and be alive to opportunities and threats.

Some innovations and “new paradigms”

All too commonly, there is terminological confusion – inexactitude at least. Fuzzy
terminology leads to fuzzy thinking which hampers understanding and progress.
Innovation is defined as:
The action of innovating; the introduction of novelties; the alteration of what is established
by the introduction of new elements or forms; the action of introducing a new product into the
market (Oxford English Dictionary (OED), 2009).
So, innovation is development and implementation of invention, rather than invention
per se; usually, occurring in an evolutionary manner with occasional stepwise changes
and progressively over time.
A paradigm is “A conceptual or methodological model underlying the theories and
practices of a science or discipline at a particular time; (hence) a generally accepted
world view” (OED, 2009). The OED includes a synopsis of the notion of a paradigm in
science, derived from Kuhn (1970):
“Normal science” means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements
[. . .] that some particular scientific community acknowledges [. . .] as supplying the
foundation for its further practice [. . .] I [. . .] refer to [these achievements] as “paradigms”.
So that, “in a nutshell, paradigms are ‘universally recognized scientific achievements
that for a time provide model problems and solutions to a community of practitioners’”.
Clearly, paradigms need to change and often do so through the dialectic triad of
thesis, antithesis and synthesis (Rosen, 1982). That is because human knowledge is in
a constant state of flux as it develops and so, paradigms are always shifting to some
degree – the danger seems to be regarding them as prescribed and fixed for anything
more than a short period. Thus, over the last 30 years or so, many innovations and New research
a number of “new paradigms” appear to have impacted on construction. Whether those paradigms
are, in fact, “new paradigms” or merely changes within existing paradigms or “new
sub-paradigms” is questionable.
As undergraduates, my colleagues and I were introduced to many topics which were
becoming important and could “revolutionise” the industry, including CAD, automated
production of bills of quantities, life cycle costing, management contracting and new 7
forms of contract. Following graduation, working for some years in the industry and,
then, entering academia provided exposure to further emergent issues, including
productivity, teamwork and buildability. Indeed, a pattern has become quite apparent –
that, despite changes and developments, many topics cycle round in “popularity” –
what practitioners identify as important, what research agencies prefer to fund, and
what academics (therefore) want to investigate.
Whether such topics constitute even sub-paradigms is open to debate. Certainly, they
have impacted on the way practitioners and researchers consider construction activities,
problems and products but how fundamental the changes are, and so, whether real
paradigm shifts have occurred is addressed below.
In many ways, such developments represent increments of innovation and new
paradigms. Bishop (1975) addressed productivity and noted a number of considerations
for achieving high levels of productivity. Griffith (1983), amongst several researchers,
integrated ideas of productivity with design of buildings to propose principles of
“buildability”, intended to foster performance of construction processes through their
consideration during design with a view to securing more speedy, less expensive and more
profitable projects and with quality benefits – i.e. to enhance construction productivity.
Griffith and Sidwell (1995) developed the concepts further into “constructability” but did
not incorporate the issues regarding disposal of a project at the end of its life and so,
omitted an important element of life cycle analysis and sustainability.
The theme of quality was the major constituent of the work of Deming (1986) which,
along with the publications of other “quality gurus”, generated an array of principles
(e.g. Deming’s 14 points) and practices (quality assurance (QA), quality circles, etc.) for
managing quality. Those involved developments beyond inspection-based quality
control which was deemed inefficient as it was only a screening and sorting approach –
treating the symptoms rather than the cause(s) – to direct industrial processes towards
both achieving and constantly striving to improve quality through managing the
totality of aspects; hence, TQM. Quality has long been a concern for construction
projects and so, it is hardly amazing that many of the quality approaches, such as
ISO 9000, were adopted with relish (especially by public sector clients). Unfortunately,
QA systems assured compliance (with specification) rather than quality (improvement)
per se, as was sometimes assumed, so that the problem of “garbage in, garbage out”
remained, even accentuated. TQM is necessary to really address quality provision but
that is a philosophy, rather than a system, and requires commitment, notably by senior
management, for it to operate well and to succeed.
That scenario concerning quality demonstrates a possible trap in innovations/
paradigm shifts – that “hard” systems are often obvious and clear in aim, content
and procedures and can work very well to “do exactly what it says on the tin” but
remain limited to just that. The “soft” systems are essential as fundamentals,
complemented/supplemented by associated “hard” systems, to reap full benefits.
CI Combining the productivity and quality “movements”, we arrive at “lean” – the desire
10,1 to get rid of “fat”. However, as butchers and chefs well know, bone and fat are vital to quality
of meat (and that, from a vegetarian!). According to Wikipedia (2009), lean construction is
a new paradigm and, following Koskela (2000), comprises three complimentary ways
of conceptualising production/construction “as a Transformation (T), as a Flow (F), and as
Value generation (V)”. Various tools have been developed based around the approach
8 (Ballard, 2000) but have become increasingly criticised (Cusumano, 1994; Green, 1999, 2002;
Green and May, 2005).
Analogously, costs in use transformed into terotechnology and life cycle costing; the
most recent terminology being whole life costing. Notably, many of the terms used also
reflect either constriction or error in that costs per se are rarely the only, or even the
primary, concern – more commonly, it is the revenue or value aspects which dominate
or, given the profit criterion, the goal becomes maximising the (appropriable) surplus of
revenues over costs (Cox, 1999).
Pursuit of profit also fuelled the emergence of value engineering (VE) with its
production-oriented implementation to maximise essential functionality while, at the
same time, minimising cost (commonly by removal of unnecessary functions). A more
holistic perspective of production processes and appreciation of the impacts of different
process stages prompted the extension of VE into design and to an overall managerial
view, resulting in value management (Kelly et al., 2004). However, the gamut of studies
relating to value and values have fostered extension of the scope of that paradigm and
associated techniques to include addressing what value is, how it relates to market
transactions, whose values apply, how transient are value assessments, etc. to promote
the concept of the management of value (Emmitt et al., 2005). Here, Emmitt et al. (2005)
usefully focus on two pervading questions – what is value and value to whom? –
within the transient power-oriented complexity of construction.
Universally, construction has long been acknowledged to be a “people industry”;
often that is interpreted as no more than involving labour intensive activities. Even that
simplistic recognition generates awareness of the importance of good communications
(Higgin and Jessop, 1963). Wider and deeper interpretations, especially in the context
of performance problems of the industry (Latham, 1994; Egan, 1998) and the seminal
work of Lawrence and Lorsch (1967), have directed attention to issues of coordination
(including buildability), collaboration and cooperation to strive for integration,
commonality of objectives, and commitment as means of enhancing performance
and profitability by moving towards a non-zero-sum game from the “traditional”
competitive/combative zero-sum game approach (Nicolini, 2002; Dainty et al., 2005;
Baiden et al., 2006).
Baiden et al. (2006) note that common procurement methods for (assembling
“teams” on) construction projects “[. . .] have focussed on organisations’ individual [. . .]
capability rather than their collective ability to integrate and work together effectively”
thereby not only accentuating the technical focus of participant selection but also doing
nothing to combat fragmentation (Latham, 1994; Egan, 1998). While fragmentation
has positive performance aspects – division of labour, specialisation – its more usual
focus is on detrimental consequences – communication problems, lack of coordination
and collaboration – as seminally discussed by Lawrence and Lorsch (1967). Thus,
if teamwork requires pursuit of common objectives, as well as integration of diverse
qualities of team members, etc. and “partnering” is more (cooperation, collaboration
and integration) than teamwork then, for partnering to operate, a “paradigm shift” is New research
required! For researchers, partnering protagonists’ reporting success of the process paradigms
from examination of “demonstrator projects” is hardly valid and reliable; Bishop (1975)
noted the productivity enhancement found on “favoured nation status” projects.
The notion (paradigm?) of partnering has spawned “public private partnerships”,
the UK’s private finance initiative, framework agreements (relating back to measured
term contracts) and even an endeavour to shift English law to introduce multi-party 9
contracts – as in PPC2000. Does that represent a “new paradigm” or portray the power
of propaganda?
Research on the vital issue of construction safety has proved successful with
the outputs shifting the paradigm in many countries’ construction industries from a
Taylorist prescriptive approach of supplying safety equipment, stipulating methods
of working and employing “safety officers” to comply with legislative minima to a
behavioural modification approach; generally, accident and fatality rates have fallen,
where the change has occurred. The behavioural modification approach emphasises
education and training in movement towards effecting a cultural change in the
industry; it is reinforced with related initiatives including computer modelling of
methods of construction to aid detection and reduction/removal of (potential) hazards.
An important constituent is inculcation of awareness of hazards and joint and several
responsibilities for using safe working practices (Duff, 2000; Rowlinson, 2004; Cameron
and Duff, 2007).
Recently, quite properly, no consideration of construction and built environment
paradigms could be complete without attention to the vital and pervasive issue
of sustainability. Arguably, sustainability is the most important issue globally but
seems to be poorly understood and, like partnering in construction, rife with
propaganda. Attention to sustainability in the built environment was “kick started”,
from a cost/economics perspective, by the “oil crises” of the 1970s, accentuating life cycle
cost problems and requirements for much greater energy efficiency in buildings
(BREEAM, 2009; LEED, 2009). Through publicity of global warming, other pollution
problems and issues of resource depletion, United Nations (notably, the report of the
World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) – The Brundtland Report)
activities and international industry initiatives (e.g. ISO14000), attention has become
more generalised and specific. However, major terminological (definitional) problems
remain which have spawned “various types of sustainability” including environmental,
economic (growth?), social, cities, development, construction, etc. (DETR, 1999, 2001).
Fundamentally, there is confusion between (real/scientific) sustainability and
(pragmatic/achievements of) “greening” (Cole, 1999). That terminological substitution
fosters ignorance and engenders complacency (Fellows, 2006) and so, probably, is the
most dangerous error in paradigm appreciation (and activities) that we, as living
creatures (with intelligent influence/impact) face.

Discussion
Dosi (1982) noted that a paradigm is “[. . .] an ‘outlook’ which defines the relevant
problems, a ‘model’ and a ‘pattern’ of inquiry.” Like a theory, a paradigm represents a
set of statements of assumptions and facts which represent the underlying ontological
(philosophy of reality – independently objective, realism/constructed by people,
nominalism) and epistemological (philosophy of knowledge; positivist/antipositivist)
CI position adopted. Hence, a paradigm, as the “lens” through which things are seen,
10,1 involves selection – of the paradigm and its constituents – to yield a chosen trajectory
in which knowledge develops; therefore, paradigms are dynamic, perhaps by adding or
removing auxilliary statements (as for theories). Nelson and Winter (1977) suggest that
the “natural trajectories” are towards mechanisation and economies of scale which may
be generalised to enhancement of (forecast) profitability.
10 Winter et al. (2006) argue that the “[. . .] dominant strand of project management is the
rational, universal, deterministic model [. . .] the ‘hard’ systems model, emphasising the
planning and control dimensions [. . .]”. They identify a “[. . .] second strand [. . .]
focussed on organisational structure as a means of achieving integration and task
accomplishment” and a recent “[. . .] third group [. . .] recognising the importance of the
front-end, and of managing exogenous factors, as well as the more traditional ‘execution
focussed’ endogenous ones.” From the network’s principal finding of the necessity
for “[. . .] new thinking in the areas of project complexity, social process, value creation,
project conceptualisation and practitioner development”, they advocate three directions
of “[. . .] theory about practice [. . .] theory for practice [. . .] and theory in practice”.
However, it seems questionable whether the intent is to denote three categories of theory,
which could be reductionist and, hence, divisive, or to expound three contexts for
applications of theoretical bases to constitute integration and coherence.
That main finding reflects thinking in many other disciplines concerning the validity
of the Newtonian approach of reductionism (complexity relates to synergy/holism) and
draws attention to the broad stakeholder approach to projects and business activities
through emphasising the importance of “soft” aspects. Thus, impacts of behaviour and
culture are becoming recognised as fundamental – as in asking what and whose values
apply to project realisations and how the applicable values translate into performance
goals and targets and how achievement endeavours may be managed. That raises an
analogy with a debate in mainstream economics such that instead of examining what a
firm is through examination of the boundary and a firm’s main constituents (Teece et al.,
1994; Holmström and Roberts, 1998), we may ask “what is a project”? This debate is just
one manifestation of the recognition of complexity as projects, organisations, actors and
contexts are understood to be interdependent.
Winter et al. (2006) discuss the traditional and dominant “being” ontology in
comparison and conjunction with the “becoming” ontology. Those are important and
complimentary perspectives with the former emphasising statics and determinism
and the latter, dynamics and stochasticism. The discussion of complexities, both
within projects and of project contexts, begins to emphasise an important array of
lines of research and, coupled with the emergent complexity theory, points to
more reality-oriented methods. Further, the expression of “[. . .] projects, as artefacts of
the power relationships between different groups with competing interests”
acknowledges the findings of Cherns and Bryant (1984), and work in mainstream
sociology on the incidence and use of power (Clegg, 1989).
Over many years, researchers have been required to adopt, articulate and justify,
their ontological and epistemological position and, thus, the paradigm adopted such
that the research (methods), results and findings can be examined in context. Within
construction and built environment research, the dominant paradigm has manifestly
been positivistic and quantitative, following Newtonian reductionism. Latterly, the
qualitative, constructivist paradigm gained ascendancy, employing interpretivism,
grounded theory, ethnomethodology, etc. The emerging paradigm, arising out of New research
triangulation debates, is of multi-methodology to yield a holistic paradigm involving paradigms
integration of previously individual paradigms, and their adopted methods of
investigation, into a more complex, and, arguably, realistic view.

Conclusions
Scepticism is not only healthy but also may be regarded as an essential quality of any 11
researcher – only when statements and approaches are adequately justified should
they be adopted. Results must be subject to as much scrutiny from as many angles
as possible such that their limitations and, hence, validities and reliabilities are clear.
Similar concerns apply to theories such that, following Blockley (1980), only theories
with high-information content can achieve high levels of corroboration; that also relates
to the usefulness of theories – which should not be general and vague (lacking in
information content and so, readily validated and reliable).
Paradigms concern ontology and epistemology and so, relate directly to methodology
and, thence, proceed to data collection and analyses. Here, it is essential to understand
the terms clearly and to express the position adopted. All should be justified from
theoretical and (or) pragmatic considerations – self-awareness to inform the research
and others.
So, what are the “new paradigms”? Much of the exposition, above, concerns re-cycling
topics in amended guises – “emporers’ new clothes” rather than “new (research)
paradigms”. There has been a shift from positivistic, “hard” research into interpretivistic,
“soft” research (popularly a move from quantitative approaches to qualitative
approaches – but, in reality, much more than that). Most recently, the likely
contribution of multi-methodology is gaining recognition – the integration of Lawrence
and Lorsch (1967) applied to research – the methodological pluralism discussed by Dainty
(2008).
For the (hopefully, impending) future, “new paradigms” should concern migration to
stochastic perspectives and approaches from determinism; holism and the acceptance
of complexity and its accommodation in investigations (of integrated processes and
products); and, consequently, the rigorous use of methodological pluralism.
Food for thought, and progress, I hope – me included!

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Corresponding author
Richard Fellows can be contacted at: r.fellows@lboro.ac.uk

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