Project organizations as organizational fields: expanding the level of analysis through Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice

Abstract

This paper can be seen as a response to the 2012 special edition of the Engineering Project Organization Journal, in which the authors provide a theoretical review of past research in various subfields of social science and management science. The many papers in the edition provide, as Levitt [(2012) Editorial: Special issue on fundamentals of social and management science for engineering project organizations. The Engineering Project Organization Journal, 2, 1–3] proclaims, ‘solid points of departure to frame questions and methods for […] research and, thereby, to contribute more significantly to the knowledge base and practice of engineering project organization and management’. Drawing on a challenge posed by the editor and authors of the special edition to expand the existing levels of analysis in the engineering project domain, this paper explores a possible theoretical framework that can build on the existing foundation of research and bring new analytical insights about the sector; namely Bourdieu’s [(1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York; (1990) The Logic of Practice, Polity Press, Cambridge] Theory of Practice. Through an analysis of Bourdieu’s key concepts—habitus, capital and field—the paper investigates how the architecture, engineering and construction sector and the project organizations of which it largely consists may be investigated not only through its processes and interactions but also through the objective relations that exist beyond these processes and networks.