This special issue advances interdisciplinary dialogue in Construction Management Research (CMR) by foregrounding new work undertaken by critical researchers who approach construction-related phenomena through ethnography. As we have previously argued, with our colleague Andrew Dainty (Pink et al. 2013, p. 3), ethnographic research rooted in social science approaches has a key role to play in CMR precisely because it is sensitive to local context, to the practice of work as it is experienced and played out, and to cultural difference. As our more recent work has shown, ethnographic engagements in the construction industry reveal social, experiential and often unspoken ways of knowing. It is vital to understand these aspects in order to address any of the industry’s enduring challenges, such as worker training and safety, as well as to engage with the possibilities and opportunities afforded the industry as digital technologies become increasingly pervasive in everyday and work environments (Pink et al. 2014, 2016).