Analysing secondary data to understand the socio-technical complexities of construction-design decision-making

This chapter contains an explanation of the secondary research method used to select and re-analyse six case studies from an existing, comprehensive dataset. The existing dataset included 23 case studies, each focused on the building-design process of a structural element. The aim of the original research, for which this data had been collected, was to understand what characteristics of communication between participants in the building-construction design process were linked to positive health and safety (H&S) outcomes. The new study built on and extended this previous research. The aim of the new study was to reveal the interdependence of social and technical aspects of design decision-making and explain the impact on constructability and H&S outcomes. When selecting the six existing cases for re-analysis, a set of selection criteria was developed to ensure the suitability of the secondary data for the new study. A secondary, convergent, mixed-method research design was combined with a novel multi-level network analysis framework to integrate and analyse simultaneously the existing quantitative and qualitative data for each case. Consequently, a more comprehensive and detailed investigation of the socio-technical complexities that characterise construction-design decision-making was achieved in the new study. To explain this approach, the results of one case study have been reported in this chapter. In the chapter, opportunities have been indicated for employing new research designs and novel methods to re-analyse existing datasets that were collected as part of the previous research to answer new research questions. The importance of ensuring the suitability of the existing data for new studies has also been highlighted.