Making Sense of ‘Project Management’—Chinese Contractors’ Perspective

Despite the phenomenal growth of attention on project management in the Chinese construction sector, exploration of ground practices related project management is still lacking. The broader context is provided by introduction of marketization of the Chinese construction sector since 1978. What is notably absent in existing literature is understandings of practitioners’ responses to the introduced project management policy. The reported research adopts a sensemaking perspective to understand how Chinese practising managers enact to project management, bridging the macro-level policy announcement and micro process of practising managers’ enactment. Three contracting firms in Chongqing city region in South West China were selected as cases to study practising managers’ enactment to project management. It has been found that Chinese contracting firms establish their organizational identity of ‘general contractor’ which resulted large scale of layoff and redefined the relationship between management staff and construction labours as subcontracting. ‘Project manager’ has been established as an important professional role in construction management practices, although decision making rights about selecting subcontractors and suppliers are decentred into headquarters of contracting firms. The findings illustrate how practitioners’ enactment to ‘project management’ has resulted a complex plethora of hybrid practices, shaping and are shaped by the broader Chinese construction context.