The Duality and Paradoxical Tensions of Quality and Safety: Managing Error in Construction Projects

Drawing on insights from organizational theory, in this article, we examine the paradoxical tensions that reside between quality and safety and impact construction organizations and their projects. Rather than adopting the dualistic, reductionist, and ineffective “either/or” framing of quality and safety, we suggest confronting them as a duality. The corollary is balancing the competing demands of quality and safety, thus putting managers in a position to optimally reduce rework and improve project safety at the same time. Managers also need to focus on balancing the paradoxical tensions of error prevention and error management that can influence a project's performance. However, the offsetting of these tensions has been overlooked in practice. In this article, we proffer that if construction organizations are to make headway to improve quality and safety simultaneously, then managers should espouse ambidexterity, move from the “tyranny” of quality or safety to “genius” of quality and safety and, thus, synergize these two competing demands while managing the paradoxical tensions of error prevention and error management.