Literature Review

Online Collaboration In Construction Industry

In today’s world, physical proximity is no longer necessary in order to complete a construction project or even the same continent. It happens because of the introduction of online collaboration and project management (OCPM) that provides a more flexible, competitive, and adaptive approach toward handling a construction project and improving performance. The question of introducing advanced information technology has been initiated since the availability of IT for the companies. Systems and platforms have been invented and implanted in various business processes and functions to get the benefits of the internet and its ubiquitous nature (Creswell, 2013).

Research has been done in the field of construction and project management elaborating the pertinence and applicability of online collaboration platforms in order to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of the workforce and invested resources. Another field has been emerged due to the online platforms giving more autonomy and efficiency to the construction and project managers by generating virtual teams. Online platforms provide tools to handle those virtual teams more effectively from anywhere (Chidambaram, 1996). The online collaboration platforms are highly beneficial because of the resourcefulness it provides, immediate access to the project information, a central interface to connect and communicate all the project components. Also, it provides an opportunity to communicate on a continuous and accurate basis so that the whole project can be run in due monitoring and control processes.

Information technology has enabled the project managers to achieve this goal by providing better communication through an online collaboration platform which gives more optimal control through accurate and faster information flow (Balvanes & Caputi, 2001). It also provides a tool for continuous reporting regardless of the physical boundaries, more comprehensible documentation, and secure document availability to the project managers as well as other involved teams and individuals in a global context (O’Donnell, Gilmore, Cummins, & Carson, 2001). It has been a global issue to handle and maneuver a diverse workforce while the wide diversity of skills, abilities, and knowledge necessary to have a project from all over the world brings a wide array of expertise and viewpoints to the construction project (Gibson & Cohen, 2003). Moreover, the involvement of more than two parties belonging to very different nature and professions bring more challenge towards managing the project. Also, the ever-rising prevalence of virtual teams is putting pressure on the implementation of online collaboration platforms being confluences the organizational and technological development and associated business benefits with these types of virtual teams (Hightower & Sayeed, 1996).

Virtual teams mitigate the cost by generating e-economies of scale and cutting other expenses associated with traveling and provision of physical space for the workforce. In addition to this, the project life cycle can also get reduced as the information and communication online becoming faster and continuously establishing an accurate database to be acted upon for every individual. Hence, the online platform has become a crucial part in managing virtual teams and construction projects, improving speed, facilitating teamwork, enhancing the quality of the information flow, and also for the detention of organizational knowledge (Becerik, 2004). Despite all these benefits which online collaborating platform provides to the project management teams, it is hard to find a real-time example in a global scenario that which companies have implemented the OCPM technology and have gained stat of art results after implementation. However, few large companies operating worldwide are using information technology at bigger scales to share and capture the company-wide knowledge and to run the construction project sitting in the head offices even in the other continents (Abowitz & Toole, 2009).

Online collaboration and project management technology can be referred to any web-based sources of sharing information and web-enabled technologies. These technologies provide project management functionalities, communication platforms, and collaboration spaces for construction projects. It also provides equal access to the whole team with different designations and covering all aspects of the project under consideration (Beechler & Woodward, 2009).

The team member, contractors, sub-contractors, workers, and project managers can view the information and project status through their internet browsers with provided access with passwords and usernames for authentication (Grimes, McMullen, Vogus, & Miller, 2013). However, it is worthy to mention that the business model for the construction companies changes with the application and implementation of online collaboration platform which might be a restricting source for this online platform by many construction companies and discouraging its application in the construction industry.

Nonetheless, the researchers and literature are evident about the benefits of the online collaboration platform specifically on the construction industry. The reason behind this is the amount of investment and funds, time, and resources required to complete these huge projects that can see and embrace catastrophic failure as the result of bad management practices and the absence of necessary information. Every worker can only handle these serious management issues through instant access to the needed information. It allows them to collaborate and coordinate accordingly instead of the time taken for revisions and approvals (Chidambaram, 1996). Online collaboration platforms provide this facility along with the controlling construction process and automation of information (Alshawi & Ingirige, 2003).

The tools in the online platform enable the actors and participants to record, send, store, receive, share, monitor, and manage the drawing, Request for information (RFI), specification, and documents related to the design and construction processes or procurement processes. Beyond these basic facilities, there are many other features that are available in the online platforms provided by various vendors for enterprise solutions, process and workflow automation, document management, and process management (Becerik, 2005). The most advantageous aspect of the online collaboration platform is the recording of every second’s progress and the availability of the progress report to the quality-controlling manager. With due monitoring, the project manager either located regionally or outside of the continent even would be able to meet the specific dates and project deadlines with the least cost or schedule overrun risk. It leads to the identification of another advantageous aspect which is the mitigation of the associated risks, the inefficiency of the workforce, unrealistic time deadlines, and waste of investment in the construction projects (Bonner & Bolinger, 2013).

A recent study conducted by the Gartner Group, which was done on the measurement of virtual teams, found that professional employees have a greater tendency to work virtually in today’s world. And more than 60 % of the professionals in the construction industry prefer to work in virtual teams (Chen, 2012)Virtual teams provides a structural mechanism that is needed to handle time, increased expenses on traveling, coordination, and cost which is required to bring the employees together under a common workplace who are temporally, geographically and functionally dispersed (Martins, Gilson, & Maynard, 2004).

Online collaboration and communication greatly reduce this cost and create the possibility of a continuous interaction more effective than the traditional way of running a construction project which requires a number of meeting, revisions of drawing and specification, and ample time of approval needed to further deliver the work according to the revised documents and decisions by the contractor and project manager. It leaves the workers free and projects bearing the cost overrun or schedule overrun in the end. Hence, the online collaboration platform has been providing to abolish all these performance retarding inefficiencies which are crucial and traditional in construction projects and cannot be removed otherwise. In other words, it can be said these inefficiencies, project delay, wastage of money and resources, and cost overrun are inherited in the construction projects because of the nature of the work and industry mechanisms (McKnight & Chervany, 2000).

However, there are certain issues and disadvantages associated with the use of online collaboration platforms and the management of virtual teams because there are various bottlenecks associated with both of these. These bottlenecks include individualism, the desire to be involved in everything, and attachment to power. These things, however, could be handled by the trust which is crucially needed in the online collaboration as a fundamental factor to reduce the above-mentioned bottlenecks and more important in the determination of the success or failure of these platforms. Trust leads to cooperation, more open communication, risk-taking, quality decision making, and satisfaction with the decision which is taken by the team with due collaboration. And also the instant access to all the information which leaves no chance of hiding any aspect or stealing any important factor (Kanawattanachai & Yoo, 2002)

Online collaboration platforms put greater pressure on the project manager and more responsibility of defining roles and responsibilities of every individual with more care and clear justification. Online collaboration platform has another inconsistency that is less efficient communication as compared to face-to-face leaving the teams and individuals more likely to be task-oriented and exchanging less emotional-social information. It leads to slowing down the formation of personal linkages and developing relational links that demand more clear and carefully described roles and responsibilities so that the team member could be accountable for their work besides the absence of their relational link. 

Previous literature has evidence about the advantages of online collaboration platforms and disadvantages associated with their use, however, the adaptation of this online platform is rather slower than expected. The traditional way of running construction projects is prevailing in the industry and even larger and highly profitable companies are reluctant to adopt online collaboration platforms (Hofstede, 1983). Hence, the study aims to explore the challenges and issues that the companies have to embrace to implement these collaboration ways of online platforms. There is little literature that has been found on this topic describing bottlenecks mentioned above. Hence, the study would be conducted to find more challenges and issues. The issues are related to the adaption of online collaboration platforms in the construction industry. Besides, the study is also recommending the framework to better handle online collaboration document management.