From Contractual Flexibility to Contractor’s Cooperative Behavior in Construction Projects: The Multiple Mediation Effects of Ongoing Trust and Justice Perception

Haoyang Song, Jianhua Hou and Shiqi Tang
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Haoyang Song: School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Jianhua Hou: School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Shiqi Tang: School of Information Management, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-21

Abstract: The flexible contract is an important mechanism for owners to govern contractors in construction projects. Given the limited explanatory power of the justice mechanism and the important role of relational factors, this study explored the role of ongoing trust and justice perception in the relationship between contractual flexibility and the contractor’s cooperative behavior and aimed to further reveal the potential influence paths through an empirical analysis. We found the following: (1) apart from justice perception, ongoing trust is another crucial mediation factor in the relationship. (2) Together with the former, ongoing trust plays significantly multiple mediation effects and constitutes the main indirect influence paths, among which the parallel one is strongest and the chain one comes third. (3) Moreover, both factors are more likely to be impacted by contract executing flexibility, compared with contract content flexibility. These findings enrich relational mechanism research and provide some guidance for the owner to build contractual flexibility to govern contractors’ behavior.

Keywords: contractual flexibility; cooperative behavior; ongoing trust; justice perception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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