The Interaction Of Communication,and Trustwith Team Conflicts And Their Impact On Project Success

As the construction business continues to grow at a rapid pace,a greater number of construction projects are being launched,resulting in even more severe competition in the marketplace.Conflicts in construction projects have been a common occurrence in the construction industry as a result of the increasing complexity of project environments and the increasing number of stakeholders.To ensure project success,a significant number of specialized project teams(e.g.,owners,contractors,consultants,and designers)with certain core capabilities must be assembled from the outset.A project team is distinguished by its diversity and multidisciplinary knowledge,as well as its dynamic and temporary characteristics,with the ultimate goal of achieving project success as the ultimate goal of the project team.Uncertainty,temporariness,and fragmentation are all characteristics of construction projects.Project teams tend to be dependent with one another because they share a same aim of attaining project success,which can lead to disagreements and disputes.Even today,the success of a construction project is a fiercely debated topic,and there are differing viewpoints.The impact of communication,trust and conflicts on project success is a significant,but understudied,topic in the literature,particularly in developing countries.Construction project teams face several challenges,including substantial inconsistency,inadequate communication,a trust gap,incomplete contracts,and low production efficiency.Thus,it is critical to explore the consequences of the communication-trust-conflict relationship on project success on a theoretical and practical level.The goal of this research is to look at how communication,trust,conflict,and interaction affect the success of construction projects.Two models were hypothesized one examining communication’s connection and other examining trust’s connection with conflict and project success.The structural equation modeling of both models was undertaken to evaluate the conceptual model with empirical data.To test the proposed hypotheses,we collected primary data through a research survey conducted in Pakistan targeted Pakistani and Chinese construction companies.The targeted population was the project teams of ongoing/recently finished construction projects.For this purpose,construction firms with PEC registration were selected.Since exact number of populations is unknown i.e.project teams,purposive sampling technique was carried out in this research,which can present us with a representative sample.A total of 500 questionnaires were circulated and 345 were received.Out of which,40 were removed due to response bias and 305 were used in analysis.The results showed that team communication model produced more significant results than trust model.Formal communication and informal communication interacted well with conflicts.Both categories interacted with process and interpersonal conflict but had no significant link with task conflict,according to the team trust model.The data indicated that Task conflict was positively associated with project success.Although the method had mixed outcomes in both models,interpersonal conflict has an adverse effect on the project’s effectiveness.To maximize the advantages of task conflict while mitigating the bad effects of process and interpersonal conflict during construction project implementation,it is required to maximize the benefits of task conflict while mitigating the negative impacts of process and interpersonal conflict.This is especially important during the project’s building phase.It was discovered that calculative trust had a lower effect coefficient than relationship trust in a study.Additionally,it is recommended that a greater emphasis be placed on building trust among project teams throughout the implementation phase of a construction project,with a particular emphasis on relational trust.There are certain limitations to this research.For example,the impact of the transformation of various disputes on the success of a project is not considered.As a result,future research might be conducted to develop a theoretical model for the impact of conflict transformation on project performance and to test the model using empirical data.Additionally,this study’s drawback is that it examined solely the impact of project team communication on conflict and project success.Contracts,conflict management approaches,and integration strategies have been omitted from the model.As a result,future study may incorporate these factors in assessing the consequences.Despite these limitations,the findings of this research give important information for developing efficient conflict management techniques for construction project teams in order to assure the success of the project.This study makes significant theoretical and practical contributions toward improving the theory of conflict management in construction projects and toward obtaining effective project outcomes in construction projects.