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Abstract: The growing complexity of AEC projects isincreasing the importance of the building construction coordination role. Moreover, the uncertainty linked to the environment of theconstruction activity makes way for the notion of trust. The coordinator can make use of multiple tools/views for accomplishing his mission. This researchworksuggestsanalyzing data coming from these different views to consolidate trust indicators informing the coordinator about “trust in the correct progression of the construction activity.” The approach suggested in this article distinguishes between four aspects of the activity determining the global trust level: task progress,actor’s performance, documents required to perform the task, and building elements resulting from the task. The proposal suggests introducing these trust indicators in a dashboard, included in a multiview interface, thus allow- ing the coordinator to identify the tasks with a low trust level and to understand the nature of dysfunctions. A prototype has been developed and integrated in a service- based IT infrastructure. Results of an experiment stage are finally discussed to validate the approach. ∗ To whom correspondence should be addressed.E-mail:************************.

1 INTRODUCTION

The AEC sector has some specific characteristics, distinguishing it from other industrial

sectors.

Indeed,

the

heterogeneityofactors

’

teams,whichareconstitutedfor the duration of the project, leads to the difficulty to create and maintain enduring relationships. The nature of the object to be

produced is also fundamentally different. The execution of a building is in a sense the execution of a prototype. Consequently, the uncertainties related to its design and production environment are numerous (e.g., nature of the ground) (Chemillier, 2003;Jin and Doloi, 2009). Therefore, risks of dysfunction are multiple.

The building site constitutes a particular environment and it is the place of numerous potential dysfunctions that first can be linked to documents (e.g., problems of update), then linked to interactions between actors (e.g., lack of trust that limits exchanges), and finally, linked to tasks and their execution (e.g., difficulty of performing a construction task) (Tahon, 1997).

Thus, in such a context and because of the increasing complexity of construction projects, coordination becomes more and more important for limiting the impact of diverse dysfunctions appearing during the building construction.C ? 2009 Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8667.2009.00628.x 254 Guerriero, Kubicki & Halin

In addition, trust is a central concept in the AEC cooperation context where the autonomy and the sense of the stakeholders’ responsibility are essential to guarantee the quality of the production (Bobroff, 1994).Trust is important for encouraging cooperation between people, to surmount risk and enable action in an environment characterized by numerous uncertainties(Luhmann, 1988).

Thus, this research work suggests establishing a bridge between the notion of trust and the coordination assistance tools. It proposes a new form of coordination

based on the representation of trust and focuses on the construction manager’s activity.

This stakeholder is in charge of assuming the scheduling, the coordination, and the management of the building construction activities. More precisely, during the execution phase, he is in charge of defining the detailed execution planning, as well as updating it when necessary to maintain the global execution time. He is also responsible for the follow-up and the monitoring of the budget. To carry out the different aspects of his mission, diverse tools are at the disposal of the construction manager. Two categories can be distinguished: current and emergent tools. Among the frequently used tools, we may cite Gantt, Pert scheduling methods, or some tools such as word processors allowing to write the building site meeting report and to synthesize the points of dysfunction and the decisions taken. Other more emergent tools can also be identified, such as document management platforms, more recent scheduling methods (e.g., CONSCOM, Adeli and Karim (1997); Karim and Adeli (1999b); Senouci and Adeli (2001)), 4D simulation tools (Sadeghpour et al., 2004; Chau et al., 2005;Rebolj et al., 2008) putting into relation a 3D modeling

of a building and its planning (Rekapalli et al., 2009; Chiet al., 2009), or performance evaluation systems (Arslanet al., 2008) permitting the evaluation of the stakeholders’ performance (e.g., quality of production, completion of the work on time, etc.).

A major limit of these tools is that they only offer apartial vision of the

cooperation context. A tool suchas a dashboard, which would synthesize data coming from these different views, could constitute a good decision support system and support a more global perception of the cooperation context. So the aim of this research work is to propose a dashboard supporting a trust-based management. This dashboard relies on the representation of trust for assisting the coordination of

building construction activity. If there is a great amount of research considering the notion of trust at the center of e-commerce applications (e.g., eBay), there are only few works concerning trust in the AEC domain.

In addition, these research works only consider trust in actors (e.g., Zolin et al., 2000; Ekstrom, 2004; Uden and Naaranoja, 2007). The approach of trust suggested in this research work is slightly different because it relies on a more global approach of trust in the “correct progression of the activity” (i.e., trust in each aspect of the activity: progress of the activity, actor in charge of

performing the activity, building element resulting from the activity, and document required for performing the activity).

In this article, Section 2 addresses the theoretical aspects linked to the notion of trust applied to collective activities. Then in Section 3, the article focuses on the notion of context linked to the cooperative activity. Furthermore, the trust criteria within the framework of a building construction activity are identified in Section 4.These theoretical approaches enable the proposal of a dashboard tool based on

trust. Its service-based IT implementation is detailed in Section 5. Finally, the validation phase with AEC practitioners is described inSection 6.

2 STUDYOFTRUSTWITHINTHEAECSECTOR

This section concerns trust within the framework of a cooperative activity performed during the building execution stage. Trust constitutes indeed an essential element for cooperation because the achievement of a common objective cannot be serenely envisaged without trust in a context where there are interdependences between stakeholders.

2.1 Definition and essential concepts

If scholars do not converge on a unique definition of trust, it is merely because it can take diverse forms(Rousseau et al., 1998). The notion of trust is often associated with positive expectations about the behavior or intentions of another person (Deutsch, 1962). Literature describes trust as a device enabling to overstep the complexity of the environment (Luhmann, 1988) and states the limited character of trust in a given context(Hardin, 2000; Chang et al., 2006).

The examination of trust allows highlighting its diverse concepts. First, the trust relationship is a relationship that exists between a “trustor” (person who trusts)and a “trustee” (in whom/in which the trust is reposed).In literature, the trustee can take diverse forms: an actor, an organization, or an artifact (e.g., software, website, etc.) (Sutcliffe, 2006). Then, the second important notion is

related to the situation in which the trustor Trusts atrustee.Indeed,we trust somebody in the frame-work of a particular situation, and for a particular activity.We suggest retaining that trustis established inthreesequences (see Figure 1):

• The perception of the context is the first one. It allows the trustor to determine if he thinks the trustee to be trustworthy for performing the activity under consideration. This stage relies on the available knowledge about the trustee (e.g., reputation, competence, etc.),and about the situation (e.g., risk).

• The decision of trust is the second sequence where the trustor decides to act in trust according to the knowledge that he has at his disposal.

• The action is the last one. The trustor delegates the object of trust. Therefore, he depends on the trustee and becomes vulnerable (Mayer et al., 1995). In thiscontext, the trustor is perfectly conscious that he takes a risk but trust allows him to surmount it.

2.2 Sources of trust

The examination of Zucker and Kramer’s works has allowed us to identify principal sources of trust (Zucker,1986; Kramer, 1999). The aspects related to psychology are voluntarily excluded because they are less relevant in the framework of this analysis. Therefore, sources of trust can be distinguished between:

• Trust based on characteristics. This trust is based on internal characteristics of the individual, such as culture and the group he belongs to. If we consider a building construction activity, this form of trust between actors coming from a same category is predominant. Architects, engineers, or contractors constitute three groups well marked inside which trust naturally exists.

• Trust coming from a third party. This type of trust

relies on the notion of reputation. If we consider a building construction activity, teams are short-lived,and consequently, reputation plays an important role and determines an “a priori trust” based on exchanges with third parties.

• Trust coming from previous experience. This trust is based on past successful references. If we consider a building construction activity, experience coming from former AEC projects strongly affects trust.

• Trust coming from the role. This trust corresponds to a trust relative to the performance of an actor according to the role he plays within an organization. If we consider a building construction activity, roles are clearly defined as well as responsibilities. These roles generate precise expectations concerning competences and know-how and therefore affect trust

relationships.

• Trust based on rules. This type of trust is based on contractual mechanisms,

rules, certification organization, or norms. In the AEC sector, a large number of certifications progressively appear (e.g., certifications related to competence of actors, quality of the building elements, etc.), standard contracts (e.g.,contracts describing the mission of the stakeholders), norms (e.g., norms concerning the execution of building elements). These certifications strongly affect trust within an organization.

3 COOPERATIVEACTIVITY“CONTEXTS”

Up to now, the theoretical framework of trust within the AEC activities, which this research work deals with,has been determined. The context appears as very important within the trust mechanisms. We believe that the interest of new generations of IT-based tools is to represent and take into account the context of their users. We will now focus on the notion of context and on its different understandings within IT-supported Cooperation.

3.1 Three contexts of collective action

The study of the cooperative activity allows highlighting three different types of contexts: the cooperation,the actor’s, and the user’s contexts (Halin and Kubicki,

2008) (see Figure 2).

1. Cooperation context describes the collective dimension of the activity. The

generic elements

constituting every cooperation context are the following:

• Actor. This concept refers to a human resource included within an organization and taking part

in the execution of the activity.

• Activity. It is decomposed and structured. Its execution constitutes a common goal for the actors.

• Building element. This concept also results from the activity. The execution of the building ele-

ment concretizes the common goal of the actors.

• Document. This concept refers to “definitive”or “intermediate” results of the activity. Doc-

uments are required to perform construction tasks.

2. The actor’s context refers to the knowledge manipulated by the actor and to the cognitive processes,which he carries out in preparation for his individual action. Knowledge mobilization and treatment mechanisms are intimately linked to the actor’s business skills and to his point of view on the cooperative activity.