Collaborative Knowledge Creation in Construction Supply Chain Based on Emergence Theory

Over the last decade, although there have been some changes in construction industry, a lot of research projects suggest that construction industry be still ineffective. Knowledge is becoming more important as the foundation of the performance of supply chain management, but the process of knowledge creation is still neglected, especially the methods and processes of creating new knowledge in construction supply chain (CSC). The process of knowledge creation is of the emergent properties. New knowledge comes from the way of interaction among component parts of the CSC system and the interaction between the system and its environment. Based on the emergence mechanism, a holistic framework to provide a means for knowledge creation is developed and multiple level processes for knowledge creation are identified.