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Industry Culture and Ethics of Care (ICEC) covers how firms and projects ‘care’ for their employees and stakeholders and how a caring organisation enhances value for the firm and society.
Overview
The Industry Culture and Ethics of Care (ICEC) research theme covers how firms and projects ‘care’ for their employees, workers, clients, suppliers and other stakeholders and how a caring organisation enhances value for the firm, project and society.
The construction industry speaks of ‘caring’ for employees and workers, yet evidence suggests the industry culture remains problematic and thus demands continued attention both in academia and practice.
Relationships and relationship management have been prominent in theories and practices of construction project organising, focusing on, for example, collaborative procurement for design and construction, partnering and strategic alliances and nurturing skills and workforce wellbeing.
These practices point towards an ever-closer alignment with much of the thinking underlying the ethics of care and its attention to relationships and growth-in-connection.
The questions we ask:
Our primary question is: can organisations care, in the sense of going beyond legal obligations? Such a question draws our attention to:
- Is care capable of offering new possibilities for enhancing both the effectiveness and the moral quality of organisations in the construction industry?
- How can we translate concepts of care ethics into projects and project businesses to improve practice and outcomes?
- What are the problematic issues associated with embedding caring as an attitude and process into construction practices and routines?
What our research activity covers:
Our primary aim is to develop organisational capability to align project management and caring practices to enhance performance and transform the industry culture.
Our research activity involves exploring:
- The development of relationship management as a capability to foster caring and trusting relationships;
- The formation of relational leadership and competences to carry out caring practices in construction;
- The improvement of occupational health, safety and wellbeing through a caring approach;
- The institutional and organisational conditions to enable the development of caring practices in the construction industry.
- Our current research projects
Enhancing Resident Wellbeing and Engagement in the Decarbonisation of Social Homes (2024-2025) Led by Dr Jing Xu, Dr Chenyang Wang (University of Essex) and Dr Lois Liao (Cardiff University) and supported by Emeritus Professor Hedley Smyth as the academic advisor.
Funded by Research England's Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which is administrated by Â鶹´«Ã½ÊÓƵÍøÕ¾ Innovation & Enterprise.
Decarbonising the UK's 29 million homes is now a national infrastructure priority, supported by a £1.8 billion government investment in social housing upgrades. Energy retrofits, beyond enhancing energy efficiency, present an opportunity to improve the lives of 4 million social-renting households, impacting their wellbeing and life quality. The unique challenges in social housing necessitate a sensitive and informed approach. Current local retrofit approaches, focused on top-down targets and technical solutions, often neglect tenant experiences and voices, risking economic hardship and adverse health outcomes.
This project, in collaboration with Waltham Forest Council, aims to prioritise tenant wellbeing in social housing retrofit programmes. The objectives are:
- Investigating how tenants experience retrofit projects.
- Exploring how retrofit processes and outcomes influence tenant wellbeing.
- Co-producing actionable plans with tenants and the council to refine retrofit processes to yield enhanced tenant wellbeing.
- RO4: Developing a tenant engagement model based on the research process, skills and methods, aimed at enhancing the capability of local authorities and housing associations to promote tenant wellbeing and engagement in social housing energy retrofits.
Advocacy Across Boundaries: Co-creating a Collaborative Framework for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Construction (2024) Led by Dr Jing Xu, Dr Simon Addyman and Dr Alexandra Pitman
Funded by Â鶹´«Ã½ÊÓƵÍøÕ¾'s Grand Challenge of Mental Health & Wellbeing.
The construction industry is a major employer in the UK, supporting 2.1 million workers and contributing 6% to the GDP, yet it faces a significant mental health crisis, with suicide rates more than three times higher than in other industries. Addressing this issue is crucial for sustainable development, as workers endure pressures like tight schedules and financial instability, often leading to a reluctance to discuss mental health. This project aims to foster a community focused on connected policies and collaborative practices by engaging Â鶹´«Ã½ÊÓƵÍøÕ¾ researchers and industry leaders, culminating in a cross-disciplinary symposium to identify challenges and co-create solutions for systemic change.Ìý
Ethics of Care in Project Management: Managing Project Workers’ Wellbeing in the Rise of the Platform Era (2022-2023)
Led by Drs Jing Xu (Principal Investigator), Simon Addyman and Qiuchen Lu (Co-Investigator).
Funded by Association for Project Management Research Fund.
The aim of this research is to explore how project-based firms can better ‘care’ for project workers’ wellbeing in transforming to a platform approach. Platform technologies have risen up the organisational agenda in project-based industries such as the construction and technology industries. The technical side of a platform has been widely discussed from scholarly and practitioner standpoints. Yet the organisational and human side of the platforms have not gained much attention.
Digitisation: opportunity or threat for Occupational Health and Safety and Wellbeing in Construction Industry?Ìý(2020-2021)
Led by Professor Hedley Smyth, Dr (Principal Investigator), and Dr Jing Xu (Co-Investigator).
Supported by The Transforming Construction Network Plus which is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Industry Strategy Challenge Fund.
This research aims at examining what the construction industry can learn from other safety-critical industries, particularly from aviation. The UK government, regulatory and advisory institutions encourage a rapid digital transformation of the construction industry through innovative technologies. The adoption of digital technologies offers a great opportunity to improve the levels of productivity and increase efficiency. At the same time, there might be numerous challenges with adoption of new technology across a complex construction supply chain.
- Recent Outputs
Xu, J., Addyman, S., Pitman, A., Gonzales Lazo, A., and Yuan, F. (2024)ÌýAdvocacy Across Boundaries: Co-creating a Collaborative Framework for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Construction.ÌýBartlett School of Sustainable Construction.
Xu, J. and Addyman, S. (2024)Ìý, Association for Project Management.
Xu, J., and Smyth, H. (2022).Ìý. International Journal of Project Management.
Xu, J., and Wu, Y. (2022). Organising occupational health, safety and wellbeing in construction: Working to rule or working towards wellbeing?, in: Addyman, S., Smyth, H. (Eds.), Construction Project Organising. Wiley-Blackwell. In press.
Duryan, M., Xu, J., and Smyth, H. (2021). . Joint CIB W099 & W123 International Conference 2021: Changes and Innovations for Improved Wellbeing in Construction. Glasgow.
Xu, J., Duryan, M., Smyth, H. (2021). . Joint CIB W099 & W123 International Conference 2021: Changes and Innovations for Improved Wellbeing in Construction. Glasgow.
Smyth, H., Duryan, M., Roberts, A., and Xu, J. (2020). Construction needed intensive care before the coronavirus, Construction Manager Magazine, (April).
Smyth, H. (2008). . Construction Management and Economics, 26, 633–643.
How can I get involved?
We welcome a diverse and multi-disciplinary approach to the study of industry culture and ethics of care. We are interested in topics such as relational contracting, relationship management, health, safety and wellbeing, industry and organisational culture.
Whether you are from a project firm looking to enhance capabilities, a research student seeking like-minded peers, or an academic working in the field, please get in touch.
