Based On Transaction Cost Analysis Of Construction Project Governance Structure

This paper studies the alignment problem between construction project and management models, and compares the governance structures in typical models of construction project management, using Transaction Cost Economics -TCE for short, as analytical instrument.Firstly, the theory of TCE is generalized according to its core logic, while, adopting TCE, construction project is elucidated again in a new way. TCE, one main subject of which is how to align transactions with governances, namely the problem of transaction regulation, is valuable to be used in research on construction project which is a special kind of transaction. The procurement contract and management model largely represent the governance structures, which belong to hybrid governance mode as a whole, however, there are obvious differences between various management models. Enlightened by engineering practices, trust is introduced in TCE, and the conception of instrumental trust is brought forward.Secondly, this paper analyzes the relations between product perspicuity, which is treated as the key dimension of construction project, and transaction cost. Then, the best alignment between different contract forms and construction project, which have different product perspicuity, is ascertained. Consequently, the best alignment between management models and construction project is ascertained. Thus, the hypothesis of discriminating alignment for construction project is finished, which is different from the one with asset specialty as key dimension, but obeys the same transaction cost analysis paradigm. A reduced mathematic model further validates the above hypothesis of discriminating alignment.And then, traditional model, EPC model and partnering model are chosen, whose governance structures are analyzed by the numbers, mainly by analyzing FIDIC contract conditions. Traditional model is attached most importance, since it is closest to the conclusion of TCE, while trust adaptation is the point in partnering model.Finally, a project case in which the writer participated himself is introduced to research its governance structure and existent problems byanalytical method established in the paper.