Violations happen frequently in construction projects due to opportunistic intentions and/or the lack of awareness of obligations and/or honest attempts to react to unforeseen circumstances. Dealing ...with contract violations plays an important role in managing projects. The aim of the research is to investigate the impact of trust, analyzed in terms of the goodwill-based and competence-based trust, on both contract and social enforcement after a contract violation. A questionnaire survey, partially based on semi-structured interviews, was used for data collection. All the data is from the Chinese construction industry since it provides a fertile context to explore the research questions. The results show that: 1) reputation is used as social enforcement in practice and the severity of it is reflected by the scope of the disclosure, 2) the two dimensions of trust have opposite influences on the severity of contract and social enforcement via different mediating effects of perceived intentionality. Specifically, goodwill-based trust reduces the severity of enforcement via decreasing perceived intentionality, while competence-based trust increases the severity of enforcement by increasing perceived intentionality. A comprehensive and nuanced understanding for managing contract violation is generated in this research, which will help project managers to manage the contract violation and the interfirm relationships more effectively.
The value of trust in project business Smyth, Hedley; Gustafsson, Magnus; Ganskau, Elena
International journal of project management,
02/2010, Letnik:
28, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The paper works towards establishing value for trust in project business, particularly the financial value of trust to project business. Concepts of trust are revisited. Rational explanations of ...trust are shown wanting, calculations of trust and danger being misrepresentations of how the willingness to trust is formed. The paper argues for the need to establish the interpretative and socially constructed nature of trust, primarily based upon prior experiential and psycho-motive learning in relation to current situational factors. Trust and its relationship to forming expectations and generating confidence are considered. Empirical findings are mobilised to show how trust contributed to value in a financial sense. Value is not an absolute in this context for value is empirically and theoretically shown to relate directly to expectations. Value is defined as an asset and is thus part of social capital for projects and in embedded in firms.
AbstractIn management literature, a fundamental research question is why some companies succeed while others fail. The contingency-based approach proposes that organizational performance is a ...consequence of the fit between a set of contingencies, e.g., structure, people, technology, strategy, and culture. This approach has been adopted implicitly and increasingly by construction management (CM) researchers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the development of contingency thinking, theoretical and analytical issues of its application, and the measurement of firm performance in the empirical research in construction. After reviewing the literature of firm performance research approaches in construction, firm performance measurement in the empirical research, and contingency theory, a total of 36 empirical papers addressing firm performance in construction are reviewed in-depth and their content is analyzed. These papers are selected from four leading journals in construction: ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM), ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering (JME), Construction Management and Economics (CME), and International Journal of Project Management (IJPM). The review reveals that the contingency-based approach is increasingly visible in the CM literature. However, no research makes it explicit, and some methodological issues of applying contingency theory have not been recorded and discussed explicitly to validate and interpret the research result, such as hypotheses development, multicollinearity, construct validation, and reliability. These issues largely undermine the validity of the body of knowledge accumulated from these empirical studies. The review further shows 36 performance indicators that are used to measure firm performance in these papers, e.g., profitability, the overall performance, growth in contract awards, and the iron triangle of project outcomes, whereas limited attention is paid by CM researchers to understanding what firm performance is and how it can be properly measured in the empirical research. Some suggestions are proposed for applying the contingency-based approach and improving the quality of the empirical research in construction. The main contribution of this paper is that it drastically appeals more theoretical and methodological concerns in organizational studies that apply the contingency-based approach. It also explicitly presents some valuable implications of measuring firm performance for both researchers and practitioners.
•Managers had higher trait EI scores than the normative sample of the measure used.•Gender differences in trait EI were observed at the factor level only.•Male managers estimated their trait EI more ...accurately than female managers.•Female managers had higher trait EI estimates than male managers.•Female managers showed signs of estimation bias.
Trait emotional intelligence (EI) was measured and self-estimated in a UK sample of 128 managers (52.3% female), recruited at a professional services firm. Participants’ measured scores were compared to standardization sample data and gender differences in measured and estimated scores, as well as in estimation bias and accuracy were examined. As hypothesized, managers’ global trait EI scores were significantly higher than those of the normative sample of the measure used, although the scores of female participants were largely responsible for this difference. Gender-specific hypotheses were confirmed for measured scores (differences only hypothesized at the factor level) and estimation accuracy (males estimating their trait EI more accurately), but not for estimated scores (female participants had higher estimates, but the opposite was hypothesized). Further, female managers showed signs of estimation bias.
Service design for marketing in construction Smyth, Hedley; Duryan, Meri; Kusuma, Illona
Built environment project and asset management,
03/2019, Letnik:
9, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
PurposeProject execution is dependent upon management support from the firm. The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which main contractors and supply chain members design their service ...provision in order to enhance the service experience. Marketing and service design (SD), theorized in terms of business development management, are examined to assess their effect upon service experience during project execution.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretative methodology was used to identify patterns and significant factors perceived through the lens of business development managers in ten main contractors.FindingsMain contractors provide a systems integration service, yet service provision was found to be limited and was frequently stated as “off the radar.” Clients are realizing sub-optimal value in service experience, and users and other societal stakeholders are realizing sub-optimal value in context during use.Research limitations/implicationsThere is a need to address marketing and SD research to offer prescriptive guidance to practitioners, in particular using knowledge management as lever for improvement.Social implicationsSociety is in receipt of sub-optimal facilities and therefore both socially falls short of meeting well-being and policy goals, and economically under-performs.Originality/valueContributions are made to the marketing and management theory on project markets where selling occurs ahead of provision. Scant support for construction marketing; a lack of the guidance on managing interactions in co-creating value; and the absence of SD among leading main contractors to deliver value had been reported.
Knowledge management (KM) is typically internally generated and managed.
Information services (IS) have a long history of external provision. Strategic and resource considerations are barriers to ...continual internal KM development, therefore inducing a potential market for external KM. This paper analyses conceptual issues, especially
asymmetry, for external market provision, and explores a case study of traditional IS being reconfigured into KM and IS in the cement and concrete industries; a particularly pertinent case, not only addressing generic issues of external provision, but also addressing KM services for projects, which have become a major means for procuring and delivering products and services.
Despite the growing interest in the usage and application of Agile Project Management Methodologies (PMMs), there is only scant research examining how and why organisations select agile approaches ...for managing and delivering Information Technology /Information Systems (IT/IS) projects. This paper reports on the findings of such research conducted within the context of a large technology-focused case organisation. The findings identify significant variance between business lines, specifically between product development and software development functions and their ability to follow agile guidelines. Generally across the organisation there was limited evidence of tailoring to context, an important organisational success factor, yet there was a more significant level of tailoring and responsiveness to client needs and wishes. Overall, there was a lack of clarity about the location of the decoupling points following the scoping of the project. Recommendations therefore require further attention and understanding of the implications of new practices employed by organisations, not least by senior management and for additional research underpinning such discovery.
Recent work on pricing has shown that neoclassical microeconomic theory (NCMT) is preferred to tendering theory and that implied by absorption, or full-cost, pricing of construction work because of ...its explicit treatment of market conditions, competitor behaviour and firm capacity levels. Applying NCMT in practice, however, requires the consideration of pricing from a marketing perspective. This paper examines the challenges involved in terms of the two prevalent marketing paradigms-marketing mix and relationship marketing-to pricing construction work generally, and the traditional contracting (TC), design and construction (D&C) and speculative building (SB) procurement systems in particular. In general, the marketing mix (MM) approach, having the closest fit with NCMT, is most aligned to current practice. However, conceptual and practical limitations are identified. Relationship marketing (RM) is theoretically more applicable, yet has been largely overlooked in practice due to the transaction costs and investment involved. Nevertheless, some RM tools are increasingly being adopted in response to demand criteria and clients' needs for continuous improvement, offering a challenge to NCMT-related pricing. In terms of specific procurement arrangements, SB would seem most suited to the MM approach over the long term as it is closest to consumer good markets. D&C on the other hand is considered to be the most price sensitive to demand factors, with SB the least because of its ability to control resources, specifically land and financial packages, while TC is most suited to developing RM practices.
Residential remodelling contractors operate in a highly fragmented, disaggregated market. Competition and consolidation arise from other market actors, thus remodellers have diminished bargaining ...power and higher market risk since they traditionally service geographically specific markets. Franchising theories may provide a competitive business strategy to parallel consolidation in other actors. Yet a small population of remodelling franchises are listed in the US. The vast majority of these franchises were in specialty trades and only one general contracting franchise was represented. This raises the question as to what extent there are barriers to franchising in practice for general contractors in the US remodelling industry and whether opportunities exist for growth through franchising. First, economic theories of franchising are evaluated against secondary quantitative data and extant literature. Second, interviews were conducted among non-franchising, general remodellers. Two principal findings emerge. Human capital requirements are found to be a primary barrier to franchising. A second finding is the perceptual barrier among key decision-makers in founder-controlled firms. Therefore, the barriers are largely perceptual. The finding is reflected upon by introducing upper-echelon theory and ultimately suggests that as the profiles of company owners change, the perceptual barrier to franchising may be of lesser significance.
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