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Centralized versus decentralized construction project structure – Easing communication difficulties

Martin, Hector / Lewis, Timothy M. / Fifi, Johnathan

Construction managers appear to be in danger of losing control of their projects. The problem is not that they have misjudged the demands created by an increasingly complex technical and economic environment or even that they have failed to develop strategies to address the new challenges, rather it is being suggested that the key issue is poor communication. Further, because project structure has an impact on the flow of communication within the team, an inappropriate management structure may be a major contributor to communication ‘resistance’ and hence to project inefficiencies. In addition, construction projects often end in conflict when the agreed contracted communication modes, often in a written form, are not followed. Prior research has focused on developing an optimal organizational structure without standardizing communication and failing to connect the derived structure with organization theory. The impact of centralized and decentralized project structure on written communication resistance between hierarchical levels of projects was therefore examined. To evaluate the communication resistance for a project structure, a comparison of communication channels between 30 project participants at different levels was undertaken using the analytical hierarchy process. The trend model was used to construct the activity relationship matrix, which is based on the frequency and combination of interactions amongst participants. The total resistance index for each derived structure was determined, and the decentralized neoclassic organization structure was deemed optimal with the lowest total resistance index. This strongly supports the theory that decentralized organizational structures have less communication resistance than centralized ones.