Illusions of freedom: Practice and contradictions in the work of construction site managers

Doctoral thesis, 2021

Over the past few decades, scholars have paid increasing attention to the work of site managers in the construction industry. Their work has been portrayed in rather contradictory terms as, on the one hand, one of the most powerful and influential roles in the industry, and on the other, one of the most pressured and constrained roles. The pressures have often been said to be derived from macro-level characteristics of the industry itself, including its structure, culture and technical/administrative conditions, which are suggested to predicate a particularly demanding work situation characterized by a heavy workload, long working hours and a reactive coping pattern.

This thesis adopts a critical stance to the assumption that the everyday work practices of site managers can be solely explained as causally derived from macro-level characteristics of the construction industry. Instead, a need to take into account the situated lived realities of these managers is called for. The overall purpose of this thesis is to explore the everyday work of construction site managers, focusing in particular on how they experience and cope with their work. An exploratory and interpretative research approach combined with a practice lens is used. The thesis draws on rich empirical data (interviews, observations, workshops) from an in-depth case study of a large construction company (ConstructED), as well as interview data from several other large and mid-sized construction companies in Sweden.

The findings show that site managers tend to cope with their demanding work situation by overworking. However, while overwork often has been portrayed as an outcome of pressures derived from industry conditions, this thesis shows that it is a much more complex, multifaceted and meaningful behavior. It can be understood as a symbolic manifestation of how site managers reactively cope with work and proactively mobilizing this hard-working image of themselves to expand their autonomy. Moreover, it is shown that the managers’ proclivity to expand their autonomy can trigger unintended dynamics through which they paradoxically entrap themselves in overwork. The findings highlight the contour of an unobtrusive control mechanism that might serve to discipline the site managers indirectly. The thesis goes beyond the image of site managers’ work as merely a reactive coping response, and highlights a complex and paradoxical interplay between micro-level practices and macro-level conditions that has hitherto been under-researched. By exploring this interplay, the thesis contributes with novel insights into, not only the everyday work of site managers, but also the practical underpinnings of some of the prominent characteristics of the construction industry.