Professional identity and anxiety in architect-client interactions

Ahuja, S; Nikolova, N; Clegg, S

Professional identity and anxiety in architect-client interactions

Ahuja, S

Nikolova, N

Clegg, S

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Construction Management and Economics, 2019
Issue Date:: 2019-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Ahuja, S https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0841-7671	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Nikolova, N https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5916-3822	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Clegg, S https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6083-4283	en_US
dc.date.available	2019-12-05	en_US
dc.date.issued	2019-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Construction Management and Economics, 2019	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	0144-6193	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/137579
dc.description.abstract	© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Large-scale construction projects increasingly have powerful and knowledgeable clients as project owners with whom professionals, such as architects, must interact. In such contexts, clients may have a significant impact on the constitution of a coherent and stable professional identity. Based on qualitative interviews with 50 architects across four large multidisciplinary professional service firms (PSFs) located in Sydney, Australia, supplemented by ethnographic observations, this article explores how architects constitute their identity in interactions with clients. The findings led us to conceptualise professional–client interactions in terms of two overarching discursive strategies deployed by architects in attempts to manage clients that are powerful and knowledgeable: best for client and best for project. We illustrate the anxieties that architects experience and suggest that attempts to secure professional identity may result in (re)producing an enduring sense of anxiety with unintended consequences for project outcomes and organisational performance.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Construction Management and Economics	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1080/01446193.2019.1703019	en_US
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject.classification	Building & Construction	en_US
dc.title	Professional identity and anxiety in architect-client interactions	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.for	09 Engineering	en_US
utslib.for	12 Built Environment and Design	en_US
utslib.for	14 Economics	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Business/Management Discipline
utslib.copyright.status	open_access	*
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US

Abstract:

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Large-scale construction projects increasingly have powerful and knowledgeable clients as project owners with whom professionals, such as architects, must interact. In such contexts, clients may have a significant impact on the constitution of a coherent and stable professional identity. Based on qualitative interviews with 50 architects across four large multidisciplinary professional service firms (PSFs) located in Sydney, Australia, supplemented by ethnographic observations, this article explores how architects constitute their identity in interactions with clients. The findings led us to conceptualise professional–client interactions in terms of two overarching discursive strategies deployed by architects in attempts to manage clients that are powerful and knowledgeable: best for client and best for project. We illustrate the anxieties that architects experience and suggest that attempts to secure professional identity may result in (re)producing an enduring sense of anxiety with unintended consequences for project outcomes and organisational performance.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/137579