| In recent years,with the recovery of global economy,the transformation of China's economy and intensification of market competition,the construction industry has entered into a stage of decline in big cycle and oscillation in small cycle.The transformation period for the construction industry has come.Due to the inherent characteristics of the project,such as complexity,large scale and long cycle,the project contracting parties need to face uncertainties and risk factors from different aspects,which are difficult to solve independently by only one party.However,the rigid contract strategy under the traditional thinking in the industry is hardly adapt to the new environment,which leads to the phenomenon of imbalanced quotation,low quotation and high claim for compensation,etc.The project contract disputes are very common,which seriously affect the project schedule,cost and quality.In view of this,the parties involved in proj ect begin to seek open and flexible contractual relationships,expecting to promote stable and mutually beneficial cooperation through incorporating flexible ideas and elements to the contracting.However,the extant research on the contractual flexibility of construction projects is relatively limited and scattered,and its concept,dimension and other basic characteristics are still vague,and lack of attentions to the contract process and relational embeddedness.Few scholars have carried out in-depth analysis and verification of the internal mechanism between project contractual flexibility and cooperative behaviors from the relationship perspective,and the "black box" between the two needs to be explored.Therefore,based on the incomplete contract theory,relational contract theory and social exchange theory,from a relationship perspective,the research focuses on construction project contract and contractors' cooperative behaviors.Qualitative and quantitative research methods including literature study,semi-structured interviews,grounded theory,case study and structural equation modeling were integrated together,in order to explore how contractual flexibility affects contractors' cooperative behaviors.This research was designed to reveal the mechanism and paths between them eventually to provide effective theoretical guidance for practitioners.The main contents and results of this study are as follows:(1)Definition and measurement of contractual flexibility in construction projects.Guided by the incomplete contract theory and relational contract theory,this research deployed the grounded theory to implement a three-stage grounded theory data coding process for the contract text,interview data and other data.Through the analysis and refinement of the external expressions of contract flexibility,the concept and internal dimensional structure of positive project contract flexibility from the contractor's perspective are defined systematically.Then the construct measurement scale was developed and tested based on large sample data.Based on the results,contractual flexibility is rooted in the effective response to project uncertainty,and should be constructed in accordance to the predictability of uncertainty and cost of responding strategies.And contractual flexibility in construction projects is a first-order two-dimension construct which consists of adaptability from content flexibility and substitution from executing flexibility.This construct can be measured by term floating range,completeness,terms and conditions adj ustment,terms and conditions negotiation,change order permissions,compliance level,the use of informal contract,negotiations and autonomous control measure.(2)Research on the mechanism of contractual flexibility on contractors' cooperative behaviors.With multi-case study closely combined with real project scenarios,in accordance with the analysis logic of "contractual flexibility--relationship status--relationship behaviors",four research units were analyzed to identify the key relational factors of relationship status,and then to explore the relationships among them.The results showed that the key relational factors include the contractors' justice perception and ongoing trust.Secondly,the project contract content and executing flexibility affect the cooperative behaviors through formal institutional norms and communication,respectively.Thirdly,the project contract content flexibility affects the justice perception through distribution and progress,and affects ongoing trust through institution and competence.Fourthly,the project contract executing flexibility affects the justice perception through institution and relationship,while affects ongoing trust through competence and relationship.Fifthly,the justice perception affects the cooperative behaviors through fair reciprocity,while the ongoing trust affects the cooperative behaviors through altruistic commitment.Lastly,the contractors' justice perception affects ongoing trust through owners' competence,institution and relationship.(3)Research on the path between contractual flexibility and cooperative behaviors.Based on theories and qualitative study,a hypothesized relationship model of contractual flexibility,contractors'justice perception,ongoing trust and cooperative behaviors was constructed.With questionnaire design and large sample data collection,structural equation modeling and Bootstrap test were used to test and verify research hypothesis.The results showed that the proj ect contractual content flexibility has no direct impact on contractors' cooperative behaviors,but affects it indirectly through contractors' justice perception and ongoing trust.Executing flexibility has both direct and indirect positive impacts on cooperative behaviors.Justice perception and ongoing trust play a mediating role between them,which was mainly manifested as parallel mediating effect.Meanwhile,justice perception plays a mediating role between contractual flexibility and ongoing trust,while ongoing trust plays a mediating role between justice perception and cooperative behaviors. |
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