Abstract

Professional services occupy a central role in the design and delivery of integrated product-service projects. Yet a specific understanding of the networked nature of decision processes involving the Professional Service Organisation (PSO) remains underdeveloped. Decision-making within and across PSO collaborations occurs in highly interconnected networks, where the ‘interlock’ between any two decision processes can depend on a variety of factors, such as: the type of decision problem; who is involved and when; how the decision problem was decomposed; and how the problem-solution space has co-evolved. This lack of understanding of decision process networks is particularly evident in the context of construction sector PSOs collaborating on large-scale design-build-operate (DBO) and design-build-finance-operate (DBFO) projects, where evidence-based information on services performance in-use must be brought forward to the ‘fuzzy’ front end of design.

Using empirical data from UK construction case studies, the seminar will discuss the role of the construction PSO and the interplay of project-based factors on decision processes along the timeline of project phases. Conceptual and practical findings confirm that decision processes are mediated by those business drivers that establish the underlying ‘tone’ of contractual governance, including value orientation and value time scales and also by relational aspects of PSO interaction, such as trust, power and participation levels. By mapping our construction case studies along these dimensions, the associated problems of risk and uncertainty surrounding BIM (building information modelling) and WLC (whole life-cycle cost) modelling are also explored. The consequences for both professional services in construction and the implications for integrated product-service delivery will then be examined.

Finally, it is hoped that the seminar will provoke discussions targeting how the decision-network approach to project-based PSOs taken by this research can be framed against the networked nature of value creation as revealed by Vargo and Lusch (2004, 2008).