Abstract
Gaining innovative and useful research findings concerning construction industry best practices requires an interaction and feedback mechanism between industry respondents and academia. Typical research methods such as surveys, source document reviews, and structured interviews will work, but suffer from barriers which can hamper results. Examples of these barriers include low response rates, asynchronous communication, time commitment of the researchers and respondents, access to project data, and travel costs. Structured workshops (research "charrettes") are a unique and useful method for facilitating data collection between industry respondents and academic researchers. They combine the best tenets of surveys, interviews, and focus groups in an accelerated time frame. This paper will explain how these workshops provide a critical avenue for industry interaction. Characteristics leading to successful charrettes will be outlined. The paper will conclude by describing the benefits of these workshops to researchers including lessons learned from successful workshops.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 66-75 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of Construction Engineering and Management |
| Volume | 136 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2010 |
Keywords
- Best management practices
- Construction industry
- Construction management
- Lessons learned
- Research methods
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Civil and Structural Engineering
- Building and Construction
- Industrial relations
- Strategy and Management