Information seeking and collaborative decision-making behaviour in consultancy project teams: a network theoretic viewpoint

Abstract

Purpose–Thisstudyaimstoexaminehowembeddednessinfluencesconsultants’ informationseeking when making decisions within a social network of relationships, and how these social networks evolve throughout the project delivery stages. The study is grounded in social network theory and examines embeddedness from three perspectives: structural (network cohesion), relational (tie strength in terms of friendship and knowledge awareness) and actor prominence. Design/methodology/approach– A social network analysis (SNA) questionnaire was administered to a team of consultants working on a management consultancy project in Shanghai, China. The SNA measures of density, degreecentralityandbetweennesscentralitywereusedtoanalyserelationshippatternsamongproject team members, permitting comparison between the networks. Networks were also compared across the three project delivery stages of collect, consider and create. Findings– Structural embeddedness was observed in the active information seeking behaviour among consultancy team members. The moderate network density of the self-organising information seeking networks across the project delivery stages ensures that the team remains connected but avoids information redundancy and overload. Relational embeddedness was evident through the multiplexity of ties among team members with overlapping friendship and information seeking relationships. The knowledge awareness network’s sparseness indicates a team of autonomous knowledge workers with distributed expertise. Project managers were the most prominent actors across the three project delivery stages, underlining these actors’ relational leadership role. Practical implications– The study provides a deeper understanding of collaborative decision-making behaviours in dynamic-project environments. Limited attempts have been made to visualise and analyse the relationships involved in small consulting teams. The novelty of the network approach adopted stems from its ability to offer a structural view of the relationship amongconsultants, thusofferinga distinctive andarguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics. Originality/value– The study validates the social network theory of embeddedness in a real-world collaborative decision-making setting and providesa deeper understanding ofinformationseekingbehaviours for decision-making in dynamic-project environments. From a project management process viewpoint, the evolving nature of the information seeking network as it changes across the project stages with associated actors’ roles was also visualised graphically, offering a distinctive and arguably more complete picture of consultancy team dynamics.