Research On Dynamic Governance Of Contractors’ Opportunistic Behavior In Engineering Projects

In Chinese engineering projects,opportunistic behavior,a common behavior phenomenon,is an important source of frequent problems,such as safety and quality accidents,construction waste,construction corruption,and “over-investment and over-schedule”.Under the circumstances,how to weaken contractors’ opportunistic behaviors is the core issue for governing the principal-agent relationship between the owner and the contractor.Up to now,the effectiveness of relational governance and contractual governance in suppressing opportunistic behaviors has been extensively verified.However,on the one hand,it is unclear for the simultaneous application of relational governance and contractual governance to suppress opportunistic behaviors.On the other hand,on account that contractors’ opportunistic behaviors change dynamically in the project life cycle,the governance mechanism for contractors’ behaviors in the project should be considered from the dynamic perspective.In consequence,this research explores the mechanism of relational governance and contractual governance in suppressing opportunistic behaviors in each project stage from the perspective of the project life cycle,which results in reducing transaction risks,continuously improving project management performance,and promoting the healthy growth of the construction industry.This research adopts a combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.In the qualitative analysis part,the grounded theory gives the guidance for conducting exploratory case study.After coding and analyzing the interview texts from the selected fourteen typical construction projects by NVivo 11 software,this part defines the dimensions of contractors’ opportunistic behavior,relational governance,and contractual governance,sorts out the internal connections between their dimensions,and constructs the preliminary theoretical model.Then,this research proposes four groups of hypotheses and constructs the theoretical model based on the theoretical foundation and qualitative analysis.In the quantitative analysis part,205 valid questionnaires were collected.With the application of PLS-SEM method and Smart PLS 3.0software,the theoretical model and the corresponding hypotheses were tested and analyzed.The research results show that:(1)In the tender and bid stage,neither relational governance nor contractual governance can significantly restrain contractors’ opportunistic behaviors;(2)In the execution stage,although trust can not significantly restrain opportunistic behaviors,it has an indirect significant negative impact on opportunistic behaviors through contractual governance,relational norms and contractual governance-relational norms intermediary chain;and(3)In the delivery and operation stage,trust can have neither a significant direct impact on opportunistic behaviors,nor a significant indirect impact on opportunistic behaviors through contractual governance.However,trust can significantly restrain opportunistic behaviors indirectly through relational norms and contractual governance-relational norms intermediary chain.The main research contributions are as follows:(1)It expands the connotation,dimensions and specific manifestation of opportunistic behaviors from the perspective of the project life cycle;(2)It supplements the researches on the relationship between trust,relational norms,contractual governance,and opportunistic behaviors;and(3)It extends the researches on the dynamic governance mechanism on opportunistic behaviors from the perspective of project life cycle.