The Effects Of Contractual Governance On Contractor’s Cooperative Behavior In Construction Projects

Construction projects have always been seen as the major driving force of economic growth and development.Due to the characteristics of temporary organization,high specific investment,asymmetry of information,misalignment of interests,construction projects are vulnerable to the opportunistic behavior of projects participants,which not only lead to disputes that significantly increase transaction costs,but also degrade the sustainable development of construction industry.However,traditional project management in construction has focused on technological level,which is not effective in mitigating opportunism.Therefore,recent research focuses on how to apply contractual governance in order to enhance the cooperation among projects participants and mitigate opportunistic behavior.As a result,how to apply contractual governance to motivate cooperation between parties and improve project performance has been the focus of this thesis.Previous research concerning contractual governance are mainly based on Transaction Cost Theory and identify contract and cooperation as a one-dimensional construct and the research results are not consistent.Therefore,based on a functional perspective of contractual governance,this study dimensionalizes contractual governance into control,coordination and adaptation and distinguishes between obligatory and voluntary cooperation of contractors.This study propose that different functions of contractual governance might influence contractor’s obligatory and voluntary cooperation in different ways.The severity of contract enforcement is treated as a moderator which might moderate the relationship between different functions of contractual governance and contractor’s cooperation.The present study develops a theoretical model and hypotheses based on the literature review,and the hypotheses are tested by empirical data.The data is collected by questionnaire survey and comes from experts in construction industry of China.Firstly,the validity and reliability of our measurement are checked.Then,the method of hierarchical regression analysis is applied to test and verify each hypothesis.The results indicate that:(1)contractual control has a positive influence on obligatory cooperation and a negative influence on voluntary cooperation;(2)contractual coordination positively influences both obligatory and voluntary cooperation;and(3)contractual adaptation positively influences voluntary cooperation while having no significant impact on obligatory cooperation.Moreover,the severity of contract enforcement is found to moderate the relationship between contractual governance and contractors’ cooperation.The research results enrich the theoretical system of contractual governance and extend the research perspective of such field.These findings also provide several implications for project owners regarding how to use contractual governance mechanism effectively to promote cooperation from contractors.