Assessing organizational semiotics for IT systems design: Improving information exchange processes across construction project stakeholders

The paper begins by reviewing the status of existing IT application and use in the construction sector. We argue that although IT tools and their utilization is highly sophisticated within construction, such technologies and practices are in the main bounded within single organizations, rather than spreading across the inter-organizational landscape of construction work. We then discuss the role of information on construction projects, and approaches to its conceptualization, and we emphasize the need to consider social and human oriented aspects of information and information exchange, as well as technical aspects (such as structure and typology). We use this to introduce the philosophical foundation of organizational semiotics, which involves considering the way that signs (any piece of information or representation) are produced and interpreted-a process of ‘semiosis’. We go on to outline some of the ways OS has been mobilized methodologically to assist in the elucidation of a problem and make user requirements more distinct.