How Do Different Professionals Communicate in Construction Projects? A Social Network Analysis Perspective

Abstract The communication in construction project organizations, which is known for multi-disciplinary communication, has long drawn the attention from academia and the industry. However, the description of how such communication take place is still under exploration. This paper utilize the empirical data of a construction project lead by Hong Kong Housing Authority (HKHA) to concretize the communication relationships between different professionals. Dynamic social network analysis (DSNA) is adopted to analyze the evolution of communication networks along the progress of the project. By interpreting the networks, it is found that every profession need to communicate with other and they communicate closely and frequently along the whole project without exception. It is also noticed that hierarchy is not a constraint of communication in construction projects, which may be an important difference from other projects. Future studies are encouraged to collect data from the contractor and consultant sides for a fuller picture of the communication among different stakeholders.