Low levels of productivity and recent evolutions in technology and practices are pushing the construction industry to collaborate on a higher level. A key component of effective collaboration is trust. Research also suggests that increased trust levels can lead to improved productivity in team performance. Trust appears to be valued by industry practitioners at the executive level but it also appears that active management of trust is minimal. With Design Science Research methodology as a framework, this project uses a mixed methods approach to develop and test a tool designed to assist in the management of trust levels between construction project participants. This project lays the groundwork for additional research into trust-building in construction by testing whether or not trust can be actively built and managed by rigorous analysis of current and upcoming relationships. In addition to supporting data from case studies, this was accomplished by introducing specific trust-building techniques into student group interactions and comparing changes in interpersonal trust levels to a control group of students. Results from the case studies and student experiment show some support for the idea that interpersonal trust levels, as perceived by the person making the attempts to build trust within the group, can be increased through use of a tool such as the one developed. Further testing and development is needed prior to wider industry application.

Argumentation in interaction: The sequential structure of accounts in television debates Abstract This dissertation concentrates on the sequential structure of argumentation in spoken interaction. The point of departure is the concept of argumentation as linguistic action based on accounting for a controversial position with the purpose of convincing listeners of its acceptability or in order to defend it when it is challenged. The dissertation's specific aim is to describe the interactional context of argumentation using material from TV debates. The study utilizes ethnomethodological conversation analysis combined with elements of argumentation theory. The objects of empirical analysis are the types of linguistic action in argumentation interaction (e.g. the call for argumentation or the challenge to a position or argument) and the means of signaling argumentation. The research focuses on the analysis of the sequential organization of the TV debate, including the system of turn-taking, and on describing the sequential contexts of the argumentation in this genre. Attention is devoted to so-called argumentative sequences, i.e. series of mutual argumentative responses (problematizations) by the debate participants. Also examined are other types of linguistic action which initiate argumentation by...