The Research On The Dynamic Governance Between The Relationship Of Client And Contractor In Transportation Projects

In construction supply chain,project contractor provides client with strategic resources,such as technology,equipment,raw material,personel.So,constractor is the construction capability supplier.As for transportation projects,poor relationship between client and contractor is the main cause for project failure.Formal contract has been the focus of dynamic governance of the relationship between construction supply chain members for a long time.But in practice,contracts have been proved to be adversarial and incomplete.So,relational governance as an alternative choice has drawn more and more attention.Based on social capital theory and social exchange theory,this thesis firstly defines social capital(e.g.,prior ties,shared forms,and trust)as ex-ante relational governance mechanism,and conceptualizes collaboration between client and contractor as ex-post relational governance mechanism.Second,even though the choice of types of governance depends on the client and contractor's capability to mesure the behaviors and performances of project team as well as the ability to implement task and allocate resources.Yet,the impact of governance mechanism on the development of project control capability is still unknown.Drawing from control theory,this thesis define "project control capability" as a new construct,and claims that "project control capability" is not only affected by the application of governance mechanism,but also it plays a moderate role in the dynamic impact of governance mechanism on project performance(e.g.,time,cose,and quality).Finally,by dividing transportation project progress into three general stages,this research mainly explores the dynamic relationships among governance mechanism,"project control capability",and project performance at two specific stages,namely the early stage after the signing of the contract and the stable stage after the signing of the contract.Aimed at client and contractor of China transportation projects,a questionnaire is designed and delivered.As a result,288 valid questionnaires are received.Then,data is processed and analyzed using the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling(PLS-SEM)method,in order to validate the proposed model and to test the research hypotheses.The results show that at both specific stages,relational governance mechanism and formal contract promote each other;social capital and formal contract both have indirect positive effects on "project control capability"through the mediation of collaboration.At the early stage after the signing of the contract,social capital has direct impact on project performance,and formal contract has indirect effect on project performance through the mediation of collaboration.At the stable stage after the signing of the contract,collaboration has indirect impact on project performance through the mediation of"project control capability",and formal contract does not have direct or indirect effect on project performance.