Study On Conflict Management In International Engineering Projects Based On Relational Exchange Theory

Characteristics of International engineering projects such as one-time,long cycle,high complexity,high risk,high requirement and multi-participant make conflicts inevitable.Conflict increases the uncertainty of international projects and the difficulty of management,which have a great impact on the parties involved in the project.Therefore,it is of great significance to study the conflict management in international engineering projects.Based on the case study method proposed by Robert.K.Yin and Relational Exchange Theory,this thesis describes and chooses three typical conflict events in a real international project,namely,site transfer delay,the wastewater treatment plant variation and the electrical material submission and inspection.Based on the two factors of trust and relationship norms,this thesis makes analysis on three aspects: cause of conflict,conflict resolution path and conflict-handling modes used.And this thesis finds that “bad faith” behavior(breach of commitment),random behavior,passive information exchange,lack of mutual trust,inappropriate relational behavior,and differences in flexibility caused by cultural differences are the main causes of the international engineering project conflicts.While cooperative behavior can increase the degree of mutual trust and improve the relational norms.As of conflict resolution path,the complexity of the conflict is positively related to the scope and level of the personnel involved in the conflict and the timing of the involvement of the high-level personnel.In the conflict resolution strategy,collaborating is most conducive to the settlement of the conflict and shall come first.Then competing and compromising should be taken.While the accommodating and avoiding should be prevented from unilateral benefits or increased conflict.These findings have positive implications for improving the level of conflict management in international engineering projects.However,given that findings of this thesis are derived from results of three case studies in this project,further research and verification is needed in conflict management process of other projects.