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Swedish construction culture, managementand collaborative quality practiceJan Bröchner , Per-Erik Josephson & Anna KadeforsPublished online: 18 Oct 2010.

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Swedish construction culture, qualitymanagement and collaborative practice

Jan Bröchner1, Per-Erik Josephson2 and Anna Kadefors1

Departments of 1Service Management and 2Building Economics and Management,Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden

E-mail: jbr@mot.chalmers.se

In many countries, the construction sector has adopted principles of quality management and introduced less adversarial,more durable market relations during the 1990s. The Swedish construction sector is investigated with emphasis on theimplications of the local culture. Construction in a cold country on the periphery of Europe is affected by the merger oftraditions of craftsmanship and military engineering. Centralized state control and weak professional identities have beenin� uential. However, social and cultural traits re� ected in a national management style (based on low power distance,loose control and low uncertainty avoidance) can be traced in the development of speci� c quality and collaborationpractices in Swedish construction. Egalitarian distrust of both elitism and strong professions, expressed as a tendencyfor two parties to settle disputes without referring to neutral third parties, has also been identi� ed. Some implications foradapting Sweden’s construction culture of quality management and dispute resolution to a larger international frameworkare proposed.

Keywords: business systems, collaboration, construction business system, construction culture, dispute resolution, qualitysystems, Swedish construction, Sweden

Dans de nombreux pays, le secteur de la construction a adopté dans les années 1990 des principes de gestion de la qualitéet engagé des relations commerciales plus durables et moins agressives. Cet article s’intéresse à la situation en Suèdeet principalement aux implications de la culture locale. La construction dans un pays froid, à la périphérie de l’Europe,subit les in� uences combinées des traditions artisanales et du génie militaire. Le contrôle de l’état centralisé et la faiblessedes identités professionnelles ont également joué un rôle. Toutefois, les traits sociaux et culturels qui apparaissent dansun style de gestion national (faibles distances de pouvoir, contrôle relâché et peu d’efforts pour éviter les incertitudes) seretrouvent dans le développement de pratiques spéci� ques en matière de qualité et de collaboration. En Suède, le secteur dela construction est également marqué par la dé� ance des élites et des professions puissantes, qui s’exprime par une tendancepour deux parties à régler leurs différends sans s’en remettre à la neutralité d’une tierce partie. L’auteur propose quelquessolutions qui permettraient d’adapter la culture de la gestion de la qualité et la résolution des différends, propres au secteursuédois de la construction, à un cadre international plus vaste.

Mots clés : systèmes d’organisation, collaboration, système d’organisation de la construction, culture, résolution desdifférends, systèmes de qualité, construction en Suède, Suède

IntroductionMasons are trustworthy (� deles) and clever (ingeniosi). Thisis how Olaus Magnus begins our oldest description ofSwedish construction in his History of the Nordic Peoples,written for an international readership and published inRome in 1555. Olaus Magnus ascribes a set of personalitytraits to a group of people, probably comparing them withpersonalities typical of other occupations in the same region,

but perhaps also wishing to rise above the local contextand tell his readers that construction attracts or forms thesepersonal characteristics.

Any attempt to identify a national construction cultureentails comparison. The Swedish media sometimes praisethe construction sector, then for its international com-petitiveness and for good architectural design. On other

Building Research & Information ISSN 0961-3218 print/ISSN 1466-4321 online © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/09613210210159866

Building Research & Information (2002) 30(6), 392–400

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occasions, the construction sector is blamed for technicalfaults and a perceived lack of concern with environmentaland health consequences of its projects and products. In thecase of the media, the comparison is often with other sectorsof Swedish industry, and sometimes present-day constructionis contrasted with a romanticized past when builders putquality � rst. Viewed in a broader international perspective,the Swedish construction sector is measured according toanother scale, and the resulting image is different, with lowaccident rates and a serious approach to environmentalissues being underlined (Flanagan, 1999).

In many countries, the construction sector has taken up prin-ciples of quality management and attempted to introduceless adversarial, more durable market relations betweenclients and contractors during the 1990s. This paper focuseson quality management and collaborative practices sincethese have been dominant issues in the Swedish constructiondebate over the past decade. The Swedish development ofquality management and collaboration practices in the sectoris investigated within the context of the local constructionculture. The analysis in this paper is based on a number ofrecent empirical investigations, case studies and broaderquestionnaire or interview surveys among industry prac-titioners. In addition, a wide range of literature on construc-tion in Sweden is called upon, reviewing more than a centuryof publications.

A construction sector culture does not arise overnight. Notonly is individual conservatism a determining factor, butalso the institutionalized inheritance of professions andprocedures, as well as the fundamental operations of anational system of law with continuity since medieval times.Therefore, three themes initially will be pursued:

� the tension between craftsmanship and science

� the relation between the state and the professions

� an overview of recent structural change in the sector,nationally and in its international relations

CultureBased on a detailed review of earlier studies, Daun’s (1996)study of Swedish mentality identi� ed a broad range ofpersonality traits considered to be strongly represented inSweden. These traits include communication apprehension,con� ict avoidance, social independence, little open display ofstrong emotions, and an orientation towards rationality,practicality and Puritanism. There is a tendency to egalitar-ianism. It is possible to derive at least some of theses traitsfrom the fact that Sweden is a country with a cold climate,sparsely populated as a consequence, situated on the peri-phery of Europe, and lacking the experience of war since1809. Since culture and leadership concepts vary acrosscountries, the tradition of studies pioneered by Hofstede(1980, 1991) provides important clues. This places Swedenamong the countries characterized by low power distance,

higher than average individualism, a low degree ofuncertainty avoidance and being at the lowest extreme of thescale for masculinity. Later studies have con� rmed thepatterns identi� ed by Hofstede; Brodbeck et al. (2000) reporta study of more than 6000 middle managers from 22European countries, where Sweden, together with its Nordicneighbours, presents high scores on the ‘InterpersonalDirectness and Proximity’ dimension. From this study, it wasalso evident that managers from Nordic countries associated‘Self Centred’ and ‘Con� ict Inducer’ traits less with out-standing leadership than did managers in German-speakingcountries. Although there is no certainty of a direct linkbetween cultural values and behaviour in constructionprojects (Winch et al., 1997), cultural studies provide theplatform to explain how Swedish culture has in� uenced thedevelopment of quality management and interorganizationalrelations in construction.

Skills and sciencePatterns of learning in the construction industry areobviously relevant to an investigation of how cultureaffects the evolution of quality management and inter-organizational relations. In particular, the question iswhether the two traditions of craftsmanship and appliedscience have created separate or joint patterns of learningin Swedish construction.

During the � rst half of the 19th century, building stilloperated under the guild system with apprentices, journey-men and masters in each of the trades. This system and itsindividual enterprises can be interpreted as a ‘learning organ-ization’, almost exclusively dependent on tacit knowledgebeing transmitted to younger people. Under stable tech-nological conditions, the apprenticeship system deliveredgood craftsmanship quality and interorganizational relationswere regulated through role de� nitions rather than byclients and government authorities through detailed technicalbuilding requirements and project-speci� c administrativeprocedures.

The contrast between house building under the guild systemand heavy construction carried out under the nationaltradition of military engineering was great. There was asingle dominant project that set a style for Swedish manage-ment of large, complex construction projects: the cross-country Göta Canal, begun in 1810 and � nished 22 yearslater. Hierarchical governance of the project was based onmathematics, natural sciences and foreign expertise (ThomasTelford) where this was needed to ensure best-practicetechnology. For its time, the degree of scheduling andcoordination introduced by the initiator and � rst manager ofthe project, Baltzar von Platen, a naval of� cer by training,was remarkable and gained widespread recognition (de Geer,1892). The reliance on explicit knowledge and record keepingis typical of the tradition of military engineering.

When the privileges and restrictions of the guild systemwere abolished around 1850, the ability to exploit new

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construction technologies increased due to the developmentof new forms of organization, competence creation and risk-reducing government intervention. One line of developmentwas � rmly rooted in the guild system. For example, Germanmaster masons came to Gothenburg in the 1850s anddeveloped the extant local building trades by integrating� nancial management, architectural capabilities and novelconstruction technology (Svärd, 1943). This transition wassupported by the introduction, though on a small scale, ofhigher education in civil engineering, also around 1850(Smedberg, 1937). The mid-19th century thus forms a water-shed in the development of institutions for constructioncompetence in Sweden.

It was only by merging the tradition from military engineer-ing with craft-based building that the late 19th century break-through technologies, in particular the use of reinforcedconcrete, could be exploited commercially. The exploitationof concrete technology in construction implies the applica-tion of scienti� c skills, especially in the early stages ofintroduction when adaptation to speci� c uses is associatedwith high levels of technical risks. Technology push, or moreprecisely the wish to expand the market for a cementproducer by creating a specialized and competent contractingorganization, lies behind the launching of Skanska in1887, then under the name of AB Skånska Cementgjuteriet(Hellström, 1937).

Similar to the manufacturing industry, the introduction ofnew technologies debased many of the traditional skillsof craftsmen. However, this process did not go very far inSweden. Lutheran emphasis on basic literacy and numeracyfor everybody ensured a minimum of skills even for labourerswith menial tasks. Swedish construction workers were andare comparatively well educated.

Moreover, in� uences from manufacturing tended to reinforcethe command culture associated with military engineering.Workers and employers organized in the 1890s, forming localand national trade unions and confederations. Soon after-wards, the wage system for operatives changed from daywages to a high proportion of piecework incentive wages,often for teams of workers. While this change increased teamcooperation among workers, it was also seen at the time asposing a risk of emphasizing easily measured quantities andthreatening quality (Svärd, 1943). Since the wage systemsoon developed a high degree of complexity, it was alsoperceived as threatening to block the introduction of newtechnologies in construction. In time, consensus emergedbetween construction employer and employee organizationsto develop ways of minimizing the conservative effects of thepiecework wage system.

The tradition from military engineering was also subject toin� uences from Scienti� c Management in the manufacturingindustry. The application of Taylorism to construction wasoutlined by one of the early managing directors of Skanska(Malm, 1917). The Swedish approach added a martial touchto Taylorism. Malm used military vocabulary to explain his

views of relations on site, saying that performance differ-ences between sites should be ascribed to a lack of truemanagement on the part of ‘of� cers (engineers)’. Instead ofleaving management to subalterns, he proposed the useof methodical investigations on site, based on close monitor-ing of schedules for work tasks and of materials consumed.An important element of continuous improvement wascreated, although with considerable stress on the workplacecommand hierarchy.

To conclude, it is possible to identify a slow merger of thetwo 19th century traditions in Swedish construction: crafts-manship, originating in the guild system and based a greatdeal on tacit knowledge, and military engineering, based onscienti� c knowledge and command. Depending on the typeof construction, one of these traditions tended to dominate.One merger mechanism was the rapid expansion of state-subsidized housing programmes in the early 1960s, whichbrought with it the application of principles derived fromheavy civil engineering work and ultimately from the militarytradition of engineering. However, the introduction ofquality management systems in Swedish constructionindicates that the merger of the two traditions is less thancomplete.

The state and the professionsThe strength of construction related professions in anycountry could be expected to in� uence interorganizationalrelations in projects. To understand the comparatively weakposition of professions in Sweden, it is necessary to considerthe correspondingly strong power exercised by the state.Education in Sweden has been and largely remains subjectto detailed control by central government. Therefore, therelation between the state, higher education and professionsin general is closer to German models than England, Franceor the US, as described by Macdonald (1995). In contrast toGermany, the supply of university educated engineers hadexpanded in Sweden without shortages. This could have ledto increasing formal professionalization to guard againstindividuals with a lower technical education (Meiksins andSmith, 1993).

Professional associations of architects and civil engineershave little in� uence on de� ning the curriculum and qualityof higher education for Swedish construction. Theseassociations have engaged in various activities to further thedevelopment of their professions but only seldom engaged injealous attempts to guard their roles, although a fundamentaltension between technology and aesthetics can be detectedbetween engineers and architects throughout the 20th cen-tury (Larsson, 1997). No quantity surveying education orprofession emerged. The gap between architectural studiesand civil engineering has been � lled by a successive broaden-ing of the civil engineering curriculum, rather than bydeveloping ‘building’ as a separate � eld. Swedish architectssometimes complain of their narrow role in construction,compared with their colleagues abroad (Napier, 1970;

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Forssén and Hjort, 1990), even in neighbour countries suchas Denmark, Finland and Norway.

It is easy to understand the link between egalitarianism inSwedish society with its reluctance to accept elites and theweak position of professions. Another phenomenon relatedto this egalitarianism is that the effect of higher education onindividual earnings is comparatively low in Sweden and itsneighbouring countries. While members of the medical andlegal professions, unlike architects, have protected titles inSweden, it should be noted that the number of lawyersper capita is low. The fundamental fact is that centralgovernment control is based on and expressed in statutorylaw in Sweden, whereas common-law countries displaystronger professional identities, in construction as well as inother sectors.

The state also shaped the construction sector as a majorclient and market regulator. Housing was subsidized and theobject of extensive technical and price regulation since the1940s. The National Board of Public Building (dissolved inthe early 1990s) ensured general acceptance of nationwidegeneral speci� cations and standard forms of contract, whichwere the outcome of industry-level negotiations. Nationalconsensus on how to classify building information – theSfB system, followed by the BSAB system – led to a pioneerstatus for Sweden (Giertz, 1995). Development projectssupported by the now defunct Swedish Council for BuildingResearch (1960–2000) contributed to the homogeneity ofprocedures used in the sector. However, despite the generalcorporatist tendencies during the immediate post-war era,disagreement on housing policies between the governmentand the construction industry may explain why constructioncontractor participation in state-supported research anddevelopment after the mid-1960s appears to have been lowerthan elsewhere, e.g. Finland. On the other hand, anarrangement for horizontal R&D collaboration betweencontractors, also including trade unions, was institutional-ized as the Development Fund of the Swedish ConstructionIndustry (SBUF), operating since the early 1980s (Bröchnerand Grandinson, 1992). Thus, government activity in con-junction with a readiness to collaborate within the industryhas increased the homogeneity of Swedish constructionculture and also contributed to sector self-regulationembodied in highly developed institutional arrangements forcontracts and speci� cations (Kadefors, 1995).

Structural changeThe degree of industry fragmentation along with its relationsto the outside world can be expected to in� uence notonly the nature of interorganizational relations but also itsreadiness to absorb and develop improvement methods thathave a foreign origin.

Acquisitions and mergers (Hammarlund, 1995) has resultedin an industry structure with three large constructioncontractors left in Sweden: Skanska, NCC and Peab,

followed by a small number of contractors that specialize inhousing or in regional activities. At the other end of thescale, there are numerous very small contractors. Consultantsand materials suppliers have also been subject to amalgam-ation. Limited competition in itself creates an incentive formore profound and long-term buyer–seller relations.

Given the in� uential automotive industry in Sweden, therewas a pattern available in the early 1990s when supply chainmanagement for construction was turned into a reality(Bröchner, 1997). The emergence of an early form ofelectronic commerce around 1990 can also be said to havefacilitated closer cooperation in the construction supplychain (Laage-Hellman and Gadde, 1997). Cultural traits canexplain national differences in the rate of adoption of newtypes of information technology. The characteristic ofuncertainty avoidance in the Swedish case lends itself to earlyadoption (Png et al., 2001).

The construction sector in Sweden has developed in relativeisolation from the outside world. Construction projectsabroad were often linked to Sweden’s status as a politicallyneutral country, a valuable asset during the Cold War.Immigrant labour from outside the Nordic area wasinsigni� cant before the 1960s and has never been importantfor the construction sector in Sweden. Few foreign con-struction � rms have appeared on the Swedish constructionmarket, although producers of building materials are oftenforeign owned today. Few civil engineers or architects witha Swedish education work abroad. For Swedish civilengineers, the top three countries for overseas work areNorway, the US and Iceland, partly because of the shortageof opportunities for construction-oriented higher educa-tion in Iceland and Norway (Swedish Society of Civil andStructural Engineers, 2001). A westward movement alsocharacterized the in� ux of foreign architects and civil engin-eers; during and after the Second World War until about1970, refugees came from Soviet border states, from Estoniain the north to Hungary in the south.

Little diversity existed in Swedish construction employmentuntil the mid-1980s. The end of isolation is indicated byinviting leading foreign architects for major building projects(Caldenby, 1998). These architects had their roots in south-ern Europe (Italy, Spain) or in the neighbouring countries(Denmark, Norway). Swedish architecture has been seen ascharacterized by vernacular elements, simpli� ed classicism,sophisticated functionalism and lyrical modernism. Lindvall(1992) viewed European integration as a process where heexpected Swedish architecture to � nd its way back to a sim-plicity that is both functional and preserves naturalresources, thus returning to ‘our origins that in previoustimes of shortage were more Swedish than anything else’.Integration has not been entirely welcome in the sector.Stricter public procurement regulations were introduced inanticipation of Sweden’s entry into the European Union (EU)and were viewed as emphasizing simple lowest-price com-petition and adversarial relations in construction.

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A major effect of joining the EU is that large Swedish con-tractors have increased their activities through subsidiaries inneighbouring countries, including Norway, a non-member ofthe EU. Skanska has also chosen to expand primarily outsidethe EU area, through a series of acquisitions in the US.Therefore, a new cultural challenge is posed by the recentinternationalization of the largest Swedish contractors andthe concomitant efforts to devise corporate cultures throughorganizational learning (Huemer and Östergren, 2000).

Quality managementThe particular path taken by quality management in Swedishconstruction can be seen as an expression of the nationalculture. Any new set of management concepts could bemapped against the traits that together constitute a culture,inspired by Detert et al. (2000) who have linked culturalcharacteristics and improvement initiatives.

Sandholm (2000) described the successive evolution of qualitymanagement in Swedish manufacturing. From primitiveorigins c.1900 dependent upon individual responsibility anda culture of craftsmanship to the subsequent growth inproduction scale, responsibilities were transferred to super-visors and later to inspectors. Statistical methods appliedto sampling of products emerged in the 1940s. During the1960s, efforts shifted partly towards preventative action. Twodecades later, there was more emphasis on continuouslyraising employee skills. Turning to the construction sector,the same stages can be recognized, but with a time lag.Individual responsibility on the part of site operatives waslargely replaced by supervision and inspectors appointed bycontractors as well as by clients. During the 1960s and 1970s,planning was the key word, followed by competence devel-opment being underlined during the 1990s.

Between the ‘planning’ decades and the ‘competence’ decade,quality management entered Swedish construction. Studytrips to Japan and development projects in the early 1980sgave rise to the � rst quality circles among a few Swedishcontractors. Another source was employee suggestions forimprovements, an extant mechanism that suddenly rose toprominence. These pioneering contractors were national orregional, and were focussed on building rather than on civilengineering work. Leading clients, in particular Volvo andother international manufacturers, began demanding qualitysystems from contractors. The construction employers’ fed-eration introduced an annual quality award in 1984. Furtherinterest and debate throughout the sector were generatedby a detailed study of quality defect costs in construction,published � ve years later (Hammarlund et al., 1989). At thesame time, contractors began devising quality systemsinspired by the ISO 9000 standards, but the � rst focuswas on the application of ISO principles to constructionprojects rather than to business processes in companies. Thisled to a confusing stalemate, but three associations soonproduced Swedish manuals for the adaptation of ISO 9000 toconstruction practice.

The � rst Swedish contractor to be certi� ed according to ISO9000, in this case ISO 9002, was a regional builder, SBSEntreprenad, in the early 1990s. In 1997, about a dozencompanies in the Swedish construction sector, excludingmany � rms producing building materials, had had theirsystems certi� ed. Only later did the largest constructiongroups have their systems certi� ed for the entirety of theiroperations. In the mid-1990s, Swedish contractors laggedbehind their European counterparts in actually having theirquality systems certi� ed, according to FIEC (1994). Are therecultural explanations for this reluctance? Or is it just aconsequence of the largest construction � rms being engagedin growth through mergers and acquisitions, at home andabroad, investment in information technology, and otherimprovement initiatives (Ekstedt and Wirdenius, 1995)?

To answer this, it is useful to concentrate on the oppositionbetween formality and informality in the management ofconstruction processes. In many ways, the split betweenformal approaches such as ISO standardized procedures andmore informal practices inspired by Total Quality Manage-ment still re� ects the two traditions of military engineeringand of craftsmanship.

First, there is the issue of formal and standardized qualitymanagement. Landin (2000b) has tracked how Swedishopinions on the applicability of quality management systemsto construction have developed during the last decade. Today,there are many companies in Swedish construction thathave integrated their quality management system with theirgeneral management system. In the mid-1990s, constructionpractitioners criticized the ISO 9001 standard for beingdif� cult to understand and use. An increase of bureaucracy,a neglect of economic consequences and poor adaptation tothe peculiar nature of construction projects were implied(Landin, 2000a). The introduction of the new ISO 9000:2000standard has met more enthusiasm in Swedish construction,while the current focus has shifted towards the integration ofquality and environmental management systems. Althoughthere is a long tradition for certifying construction productsin Sweden, there has been some resistance to the certi� cationof administrative systems and educational programmes. Thecultural preference for loose control reduces the attraction ofbeing certi� ed. Weak professional identities in Sweden mayfurther contribute to this resistance. A third explanation isthat managers and professionals in the Swedish constructionsector are few in comparison with larger countries, areregionally based and also tend to know each other asindividuals.

The second issue is that of informality. Generally speaking,the Swedish approach to construction quality values crafts-manship based on individual responsibility for the qualityof products and services delivered, rather than on docu-mentation that can be perceived as an insulting symptom ofbureaucracy. A semantic shift in Swedish, which gainedmomentum in the 1970s, illustrates how an instrumentalview of human resources is replaced by a clearer focuson individual opportunities for learning and personal

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development: from being an ‘employee’, the individual turnsinto a ‘co-worker’ (medarbetare). Currently, the Skanskamanagement system is called ‘Our Way of Working’,emphasizing both the real-world processes and a commonapproach. Values underlying Total Quality Management,such as customer satisfaction, continuous improvement,leadership and participation, appear to correspond topersonality traits that are commonly found in Sweden. Inparticular, the combination of lower power distance, a highdegree of individualism and low masculinity in the senseproposed by Hofstede appears to support the developmentof many quality practices, but not necessarily a readyacceptance of institutionalized systems.

The current trends characterizing quality management inSwedish construction contain recognizable elements thatappear to re� ect deeply held convictions. First, the contin-uing emphasis on developing the competence of allemployees, including site workers, through internally andexternally provided training; this can be understood as anexpression of low power distance and the basic Lutheranegalitarianism in matters of schooling. Second, the shift awayfrom focussing on quality costs (i.e. the costs involved inattaining a given quality) to a concern with poor qualitycosts (emphasizing that what is costly is de� ciencies, not theprevention of de� ciencies) is probably an expression of anorientation towards measurable results. Third, the change toa wider customer perspective of quality, embracing a broadset of stakeholders and linking present concerns withthe creation of a more sustainable society are representativeof the homogeneity of Swedish society. Finally, and relatedto this wider perspective, quality management systems arealigned with environmental management systems andprovide integrated business systems for construction � rms.Ultimately, this trend should make the isolated conceptquality fade into the corporate background. This reductionin strategic importance could be reinforced by a generaltendency to question authority and demand easilyunderstood coherence and consistence in organizations.

Josephson and Bröchner (1999) investigated current andexpected obstacles to quality improvement in a survey ofclients, consultants and contractors, where the issue ofprocurement and evaluation of tenders surfaced as conten-tious, and where perceptions of current practice appeared tobe clearly affected by the industry role of the respondent.This observation leads to the broader issue of collaborativepractices in Sweden.

Collaborative practicesIn Sweden, contractual relations in construction are thoughtto be less antagonistic than in the UK and US. Strong butindirect evidence for this is that the of� cial Swedish BuildingCost Delegation failed to identify con� ict as an importanttopic for improving the sector, although UK proposals with afocus on partnering, such as the 1994 Latham Report, weretaken into consideration (Byggkostnadsdelegationen, 2000).

A similar lack of interest in construction con� ict was typicalalso of the group appointed by the Royal Swedish Academyof Engineering Sciences to analyse client issues in Swedishconstruction (IVA, 1997). Instead, both these reportsemphasized a need for stronger client control of constructionprocesses. Compared with other Swedish industries, con-struction is perceived as adversarial. There appears to bedissatisfaction, especially among contractors, with the levelof con� ict and the working climate of Swedish construction.Although client interest in developing more cooperativeclient–contractor relations has increased in recent years,clients nevertheless seem reluctant to change the traditionalallocation of responsibilities and the traditional ways ofworking (Björkman et al., 1999; Gerle and Nyberg, 2000;Hindrichsen et al., 2000). It is mainly for projects where timeconstraints are exceptionally strong or uncertainty is toogreat that innovative arrangements are resorted to. As aresult, formal partnering with external facilitators involvedhas not made an impact.

A fundamental characteristic of contractual relations in theSwedish construction industry is that very few con� icts aresettled by formal dispute resolution mechanisms. However,cooperation enhancing mechanisms such as partnering andalternative dispute resolution have seldom been put intopractice in Sweden (Bröchner et al., 1998). In the SwedishGeneral Conditions of Contract, a standard clause statesthat disputes shall be settled by arbitration, although it ispossible to stipulate that disputes shall be settled by courtinstead. However, arbitration is infrequent, as only aboutsixty disputes annually were settled by this mechanism in themid-1990s. Formal con� ict is perceived as a failure and beingknown as adversarial will lower a company’s reputation.Therefore, Swedish companies avoid both litigation andarbitration. Instead, the parties themselves solve mostcon� icts without resorting to external resources. Construc-tion problems are usually handled at the lowest possible levelof the organization, and site managers and client clerks ofwork often have wide responsibilities. In general, it is onlywhen lower level managers ask for it that an issue istransferred to a higher level in the hierarchy. On theindividual level, gaining a reputation for a formal and adver-sarial style may damage one’s career, according to interviewresponses from client representatives. The ability to establishcooperative (or at least not openly adversarial) relations withexchange partners is seen as an essential skill that construc-tion managers ought to possess.

Managers at all levels (from site level upwards) working forboth contractors and clients usually have taken courses inconstruction law, often provided by their companies. Legallytrained experts are involved in projects mainly as advisors,perhaps only at a late stage when a con� ict looms. WhenSwedish practitioners complain that their industry is con� ict-prone, this should be interpreted to indicate they feel a strainon interpersonal relations, which negatively affects jointproblem solving, rather than a perception on the high costsof dispute resolution.

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How does this pattern � t with the cultural characterizationby Daun (1996) of Swedes as con� ict aversive peoplewho � nd open con� ict in face-to-face situations deeplyuncomfortable? Swedish project management staff areexpected to be good at preventing and handling con� icts thatinvolve people they frequently interact with. Relations arecontinuously stressed and controversial issues have to behandled without open con� ict. How do people cope withthis potentially threatening situation? An explanation isoffered by Daun, who describes an orientation towardspracticality and reason and states that in the Swedish culture,con� icts are typically solved by compromise holding backemotions. As con� icts are considered a waste of time andresources, a cultural emphasis on rationality and ef� ciencyprovides a shared overall goal for the parties and sets thelimits for what actions and behaviours are legitimate andpossible. This orientation may actually be more importantin shaping the response to con� icts than the discomfortassociated with face-to-face confrontation. As a consequenceof the perceived inef� ciency of con� icts, Swedish construc-tion practitioners tend to hold a low opinion of relations incountries where open con� icts and litigation are common. AsDaun puts it, such open con� icts are the ultimate proof tomany Swedes of the eminence of the Swedish model.

The emphasis on ef� ciency might be a suf� cient reasonfor the tendency to suppress con� icts in Swedish businessand the reluctance to engage in formal con� ict resolution.However, the fundamental Swedish aversion to engagingthird parties in con� ict resolution still appears as a paradox.After all, formal dispute resolution could be thought of as away for the individuals to avoid face-to-face con� icts and,therefore, discomfort. To explain this and to understandcollaboration practices in the construction sector, thein� uence of the low power distance and egalitarianismcharacteristic of Sweden is worth considering.

In countries where the architectural and engineeringprofessions are strong, these professionals often have arole as an intervening, independent third party, representingprofessional values rather than the interests of his orher principal (Reve and Levitt, 1984). However, in Swedenarchitects and engineers are mere consultants with a weakerprofessional identity, as explained earlier in the historicalcontext of how central government and professions haveevolved together. Thus, a national culture characterized bylow power distance and low respect for authorities allows astrong respect for rationality to be reconciled with a weakrole for experts. The egalitarian undercurrent in Swedenis expressed through beliefs that all people are believed topossess almost equal capabilities. In addition, common senseis valued higher than expert opinion in contexts whereindividuals belonging to other cultures would yield to expert-ize. This is particularly so in Swedish building projects,where purely formal competence and educational attainmentare unlikely to raise the status of an individual; peopleappear unwilling to accept that others could have a morequali� ed opinion than their own. The reluctance to involveexternal parties, such as courts, experts and arbitrators, in

con� ict resolution re� ects a wider social norm of equalityrather than a wish to avoid being seen as con� ictive. In theSwedish context, such external involvement would emit anunpleasant signal that the parties do not perceive themselvesas fully competent to handle their own matters.

Collaboration in Swedish projects is mainly informal andbased on personal relations. Under the current system,project managers mostly resolve potential con� icts bycompromise and mutual understanding. This probablyrequires a closed environment for informal agreements to bevalid and for local norms of conduct to remain stable. Thedisadvantage of a small closed environment is that there isa risk that decisions are sub-optimal for the client, becauserepresentatives of clients and contractors on site may chooseto collude in minimizing the involvement of design consult-ants and future users. Site consequences can be prioritizedto the detriment of long-term qualities of the buildingunder construction. In particular, this can be achieved byencouraging quick and shortsighted choices of substitutematerials and components in order to evade a potentialcon� ict. If this is the case, site con� ict avoidance reduces thesustainability of the built structure. Another tendency isthat collaboration implies showing concern, manifested bycompromises and by returning services, rather than seekingimprovements and mutually bene� cial solutions. Also, anabsence of open con� ict does not mean that there is cooper-ation; relations in projects are often strained, both partiesrelying on defence strategies with the purpose of avoidingresponsibility for problems that occur. After all, despite theabsence of formal con� icts and the emphasis on collab-oration in Swedish construction culture, clients still hesitateto abandon traditional contractual arrangements.

ConclusionsFrom the analysis presented above, it appears thatpersonality traits prevalent in Sweden are congruent with anational management style based on low power distance,loose control and low uncertainty avoidance. This is re� ectedin the development of quality and collaboration practicesin Swedish construction. An egalitarian distrust of elitismand of strong professions has been expressed as a tendencyfor two parties to settle disputes without referring to neutralthird parties. Institutions and mentality seem to be closelylinked.

It seems that further improvements of construction quality inSweden would require cultural change with a greater com-ponent of individual responsibility for work. A complicationis that successive improvements in information and com-munications technologies, leading to greater opportunitiesfor rapid coordination in projects, could aggravate individualstress in a culture characterized by lack of clearly assignedindividual responsibilities. Perhaps individual responsibilitieswill need to be spelled out more clearly and de� ned morenarrowly? A culture that shuns precise delegation ofresponsibilities also puts pressure on top management toengage continuously in ‘soft’ quality and environmental

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issues. Contrary to what is expected, the national trait ofloose management control appears to engender whatcontractors perceive as super� uous documentation andbureaucracy. Clients have tended to demand far-reachingquality documentation of the construction process, but oftenshow little propensity to actually check progress. Again, acultural bias in favour of vaguely de� ned responsibilitiescan explain why excess documentation should be replaced bystronger, informal interaction between clients and con-tractors during project execution.

In the Swedish context, collaboration is informal and con-struction practitioners are expected to avoid open con� ictwith their team partners. The limited interest in formalpartnering arrangements in Swedish construction may beexplained by low gains in visible ef� ciency. As the costs forformal con� ict resolution are low, no direct savings can beachieved by improving relations. If collaboration is the normand taken for granted, it is hard to justify resources forworkshops and formal systems to improve relations andbring about cooperation. However, assuming that somedegree of con� ict leads to better decisions, the character-istic of informal collaboration in Swedish construction doesnot necessarily imply that relations are innovative andcreative. Despite cooperative interorganizational relations inSwedish construction, systems for introducing and managingproductive con� icts are needed for working within in aninternational perspective. This is probably essential forcooperative arrangements based on less speci� ed contractrequirements to gain acceptance. Notably, such measuresshould ensure that a wider range of stakeholders is repre-sented in the decision procedures. Mechanisms enhancingand managing continuous improvement are an importantaspect of formal partnering, therefore these models couldbe more valid in the Swedish context than many Swedishconstruction practitioners believe.

The Swedish construction culture could be a reminder toother countries and cultures that absence of formal con� ictis not necessarily a valid indicator either of the degree ofcon� ict in a project or of the quality of decision-makinginside the cooperative relations. Although many individualsmanage to establish collaborative interpersonal relations,special measures often have to be applied to ensure thatthe cooperative atmosphere is used to support creative, jointproblem solving and decision-making.

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