The Influence Of Contract Completeness On Contactors’ Opportunistic Behavior And The Moderating Role Of Interdependence

The characteristic of construction projects,e.g.one-off,high complexity,information asymmetry,and assets specificity,have led to a very common phenomenon of opportunism.A contract,as the main measure to govern contractors’ opportunistic behavior,whether it’s complete or not,will directly influence contractors’ opportunistic intention.However,researchers disagree about contract completeness’ s effect on opportunism.Therefore,based on the related theory,this thesis put forwards hypotheses about the relationship between contract completeness and contactors’ opportunistic behavior,as well as the moderating role of interdependence on the aforementioned relationship in the constructing phase of construction projects.In this thesis,a questionnaire survey based on a sample of construction practitioners who work in the top 100 contracting enterprises in China was employed to explore the effect of contract completeness on contactors’ opportunistic behavior,as well as the moderating role of interdependence.First of all,after assessing common method bias and reliability,this thesis supported that the Contract Completeness and Opportunistic Behavior,which were developed in the context of general management,were applicable in construction projects by confirmatory factor analysis.Second,hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test the relationship between contract completeness and contactors’ opportunistic behavior,as well as the moderating role of interdependence.The results show that term specificity,contingency adaptability,and contractual obligatoriness all have negative effects on contactors’ opportunistic behavior(strong form),but only contingency adaptability is negatively related to contactors’ opportunistic behavior(weak form).However,issue inclusiveness positively influences contactors’ opportunistic behavior(weak and strong form).In addition,except for the positive moderating role of magnitude on the relationship between contingency adaptability and contractors’ opportunistic behavior(weak form),the other three significant moderating effects(magnitude on issue inclusiveness and strong form,magnitude on contractual obligatoriness and strong form,asymmetry on term specificity and strong form)were all found to be negative.Through dividing opportunism into two dimensions,we discuss some distinction of opportunism in construction projects,and can better explore the effect of contractual governance on both forms of opportunism.Taking the multidimensionality of contract completeness and different conditions of interdependence into account,we can make it clear how contractual governance works to impact contractors’ opportunistic behavior,and is able to find that their multiple efficacies in specific contexts,e.g.construction projects,could prevent or react to opportunism.Therefore,this study could benefit further research in TCE because it can help to explain how both sides can strategically react to opportunistic disturbances,and thus minimize transaction costs.