Unravelling the influence of teamwork on trade crew productivity: a review and a proposed framework

Research in construction labour productivity (CLP) has paid little attention to the social and behavioural aspects of onsite, physical, construction trade crews. The mainstream organisational and management literature provides an alternative line of inquiry where trade crews can be conceptualised as teams. By taking this perspective, the behaviours and interdependencies among crew members can be more readily understood in terms of influences on CLP. Using a structured review methodology, a conceptual framework is developed in stages by merging the concepts of teamwork and CLP. The framework begins with a broad scaffolding that draws together two established models: the input-mediators-output model and the big five framework. The more detailed and explanatory contribution uses these from the literature to identify a set of task-focussed and relationship-focussed team processes. A key benefit of the framework is that crew teamwork can be used as a means of mediating what was previously many separate CLP variables. Importantly, the proposed framework views teamwork in the context of trade crews as against viewing teamwork as a professional or managerially focussed phenomenon. To this end, this paper advances three research propositions and methodological possibilities which in future research could be tested to tailor the framework for best fit.