2.2 Grounded theory and theory building in construction
management research
Grounded Theory (GT) includes an iterative course of gathering and
investigating information to assemble a theory concerning how research
participants decipher their daily realities (Suddaby, 2006). GT is
created through the extraction of ideas and their interdependencies that
are acquired from analyzing qualitative data (e.g. interview
transcripts). There are three methodologies in embracing GT, which are
recorded as follows: Straussian approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990),
glaserian approach (Heath and Cowley, 2004), and constructive approach
(Charmaz, 2000). Researchers ought to pick their procedure of GT,
compatible with their mental style. Likewise, it has been underlined,
not to combine various methodologies of GT as one.
GT is a significant strategy for information examination that empowers
the efficient development of theory from the data through inductive and
insightful reasoning. GT explicitly focuses on (i) the significance of
long haul field studies to find what is truly happening; (ii) the
presence of intricacy and fluctuation in human activity; (iii) an
acknowledgment that individuals act because of significance and that the
significance is characterized and reclassified through communication;
(iv) an aversion to the significance of the advancing and unfurling
nature of occasions; and (v) attention to the interrelationship between
conditions, structure, activity, cycle, and outcomes (Walker and Myrick,
2006).
As indicated by Phelps et al., (2010), GT is reasonable for construction
management research since construction comprises of activities that
include the absolute most complex specialized frameworks that should be
planned and built by various specific individuals in friendly frameworks
that we know as project teams. The idea of GT permits the evoked
information to be ceaselessly evolved, refined, and connected until a
theory is assembled. This suggests that theories from GT rise out of
information gathered from social climate in its full reality, as well as
result in knowledge and understanding that would not be imaginable
through different techniques. Likewise, it proposes that GT prompts more
prominent agreement and the improvement of constructs that interface
them to make a theoretical construct in regards to the repeating idea of
what data-sharing practices mean for the advancement of trust and
learning within project teams. With GT, construction management
scientists could concentrate on peculiarities, for example, (i)
practices that emerge because of social conditions; (ii) practices that
are not coordinated toward the fulfillment of hierarchical or
administrative objectives; and (iii) mental exercises such as critical
thinking and other team-oriented activities that in any case would not
be imaginable because of systemic restrictions.
Various construction management studies have utilized GT to construct
theory. For example, Shojaei and Haeri (2019) proposed an extensive
supply chain risk management approach for construction projects that
uses, GT, fuzzy cognitive mapping, and grey relational analysis. A true
contextual analysis is introduced in the review to show the pertinence
and viability of the proposed approach. Different risk mitigation
situations are created and assessed by the proposed approach.
Kulchartchai and Hadikusumo (2010) dissected the obstructions that
forestall the development of a safety culture in Thailand’s large
construction industry from various managerial points of view. Subjective
exploration techniques were utilized by playing out a progression of
semi-structured interviews of eight case studies selected from six
prominent construction firms to investigate the obstacles they face.
Glaser’s catchphrase coding from GT was utilized to decrease the data
load after the interviews. A study by Olugboyega and Windapo (2019)
inspected the aspects and parts of construction safety culture and
whether the use of BIM technologies to the dimensions of construction
safety culture improves the safety maturity levels among construction
workers. The study utilized a systematic literature review and GT in
accomplishing the research objectives. These examples affirmed the
convenience of GT in construction management studies.