Prof.dr.ing. Alfons van Marrewijk, PhD.  Van Marrewijk is Full Professor Construction Cultures at he Delft University of Technology and Adjunct Professor of Project Management  at the BI, Oslo. Furthermore, he is Associate Professor at the Department Organization Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

In his academic work he uses anthropological theories and methods for studying inter-organizational collaboration and cultural change in technically oriented organizations and complex mega-projects. Such an approach allows to includes cultural topics of, among others, the everyday life of employees, temporality, socio-technical, rituals, symbols, and organizational spaces. Van Marrewijk works in close collaboration with public and industry partners in the construction and infrastructure sector and frequently acts as an expert consultant.

Byggesteiner for høy tillit i prosjekter

The development of trust is a major challenge for the governance of public private infrastructure megaprojects.

Contractual pre-arrangements should provide a blueprint for collaborative behavior and trust development but the characters of megaprojects challenge such arrangements. Prof. Alfons van Marrewijk studied practices of trust development in the collaboration of commissioner and contractor consortia in a infrastructure megaproject and show how workshops have been used to intervene in the collaboration of project partners in order to develop trust. To buffer the potential loss of trust through conflicts, project partners negotiated for a balanced reciprocal relationship, which is the simultaneous exchange of equivalent resources without delay.