The Influence Mechanism Of Relational Contract On Collaboration Quality Of IPD Participants

Integrated Project Delivery(IPD)constructs a project organization with close integration between participants and risk/benefit sharing through the relational contract and transforms isolated and self-interested working patterns of traditional project participants into a more collaborative manner.High-quality collaboration among participants is crucial to the success of IPD projects,and how to take effective governance measures to improve the quality of collaboration among participants is the focus of the industry.The application of a relational contract is not only an essential feature of the IPD project but is also an important guarantee for the successful collaboration between participants.Therefore,this study explores the influence mechanism of relational contract on the collaboration quality of IPD participants.The contents of this paper are as follows:Firstly,a theoretical model of the impact of relational contract on the collaborative quality of IPD participants is constructed.Qualitative analysis data were collected through semi-structured interviews with IPD project practitioners.The interview data and IPD standard protocols were analyzed and coded to summarize the core theoretical conceptions.The results show that in IPD project organization,relational contract is mainly expressed as relational norm and formal contract.Relational norm and formal contract affect trust and collaboration quality at the level of relational governance and formal governance,respectively,and are influenced by project characteristics.This study constructed a theoretical model of the mechanism of relational contract's influence on the collaboration quality of IPD participants and provided a theoretical framework for subsequent studies.Secondly,to clarify the impact of relational contract on collaboration quality of IPD participants at the relational governance level,the social capital theory was introduced to explore the influence mechanism between relational norms and the collaboration quality of IPD participants.Relational norms were operated as a second-order construct.Empirical research was conducted to test the mediating effects of social capital and the moderating effect of Building information modeling(BIM)application level.By using questionnaires to collect data,the hypotheses were tested.Results show that trust and shared vision act as part mediators between relational norms and collaboration quality,while BIM application can enhance the positive influence of relational norms and trust on the collaboration quality.The research provides a theoretical basis for project managers to better implement relational governance strategies to achieve high-quality collaboration.To further determine the influence of relational contract on collaboration quality at the formal governance level,competence trust and goodwill trust were introduced to explore the interactive influence of both trust and formal contract on the collaboration quality of IPD participants.The empirical results show that formal contract and goodwill trust have positive effects on the collaboration quality,but the influence of competence trust on collaboration quality presents an inverted u-shaped trend.Formal contract can enhance the positive impact of competence trust on collaboration quality,alleviate its negative impact.The research reveals the synergistic mechanism of goodwill trust,competence trust and formal contract on the collaboration quality of IPD participants.Finally,based on the theoretical framework developed in previous studies and the interaction relationship between various influencing factors,the system dynamics analysis was conducted to explore the evolution mechanism of collaboration quality of IPD participants.By analyzing the relationship between relational governance and formal governance factors on collaboration quality,the system dynamics model of collaboration quality was constructed,and the initial state of the model was set.The change of collaboration quality under the coupling effect of various governance factors was discussed through validity test and sensitivity analysis.This research reveals the dynamic law of collaboration quality under the synergistic effect of relational governance and formal governance,providing a balanced governance strategy to stabilize and improve collaboration quality of IPD participants.Through qualitative research and quantitative research,this study started from the characterization of relational contract and the theoretical framework of its effect on collaboration quality,gradually into the evolution mechanism of collaboration quality under the multi-factor coupling effect.This study expands the research boundary of relational contract influencing mechanism on the collaboration quality of IPD participants,provides practical guidance and theoretical basis for IPD project practitioners for improving collaboration quality and project value.