How Project-Based Organizations Cultivate Learning in Projects: A Social-Constructivist Perspective

Abstract

A growing number of studies are now emphasizing the critical importance of learning and knowledge accumulation for firm-level competitiveness. Despite the growing awareness, relatively fewer project-based firms have institutionalized mechanisms to systematically capture new project knowledge and re-use it to improve the execution of subsequent projects. The peculiarity of projects presents unique challenges that make the cognitive approach to learning difficult to implement. As such, researchers are recommending the social constructivist perspective of learning as the most viable strategy for cultivating learning within and across projects. However, scant work has been undertaken from this sociological perspective to analyze how temporary organizations manage knowledge arising from and relating to projects. From this standpoint, the aim of this paper is to discuss the learning mechanisms of construction firms. The study adopted a quantitative strategy by employing a questionnaire survey into the learning practices of construction projects in Ghana. Drawing on preliminary findings from the literature, the study proposes a model for cultivating learning within projects from the social constructivist viewpoint. In the model, project management practitioners can purposefully nurture or structure a project learning activity through four mechanisms viz.: institutionalization, externalization, socialization and internalization. The proposed model is subsequently validated in an empirical study into the learning practices during the implementation of construction projects in Ghana. Based on the empirical results, it seems that knowledge sharing and transfers through the four aforementioned learning mechanisms proposed by the model are highly regarded within project management practice in Ghana.