The effectiveness of managing through trust the middle management layer of a construction company: Proposed ethnographic research

Managers are regularly identified as the key differentiating factors between competing organisations in the construction industry. The main occupant of the middle management layer of an Irish construction firm is the project manager. The continually important role project manager's play in the success of the construction company requires the maximisation of their potential. The importance of trust and its most appropriate form of adoption to the management in construction companies of maximising middle manager's potential is the subject of this paper. It particularly explores the suitability of ethnographic research in this undertaking. The researcher in this instance is employed as a project manager in a construction firm and the added nuances this introduces are reviewed, together with the literature relevant to both the topic of trust in the construction industry and ethnographic research.