A Study On The Relationships Among The Conflict Between The Chinese Contractor And Owner, Their Conflict Management Styles And Project Cost Performance

The interactionist view of conflict proposes that there are three types of conflict in anorganization, which are positively related to each other, i.e., relationship conflict,process conflict and task conflict. The relationship conflict is believed to havenegative impact on organization effectiveness, but the process conflict and the taskconflict are both thought to have some positive effect on the organization. What’smore, the conflict management styles can moderate the conflicts’ influence on theorganization effectiveness. Based on this theory, this thesis put forwards7hypothesesand tested the relationships among the conflict between Chinese contractor and owner,their conflict management styles and project cost performance.This thesis counted the correlation coefficient among the three types of conflictbetween the Chinese contractor and owner; tested the negative function between theirrelationship conflict and the cost performance, the inversed U shape function betweentheir process conflict, as well as their task conflict, and the cost performance; andverified the moderation function between the conflict management styles and threekinds of conflict. It was predicted that these functions could fit well in the Chineseconstruction industry while have some unique characteristics. The research sampleincluded209managers, most of which came from the top100contracting andengineering corporations and the owner of large project in China. The analysis resultsshows that1) the relationship conflict, process conflict and task conflict between theChinese contractor and owner all positively relates with each other, which means thatthe occur or escalation of one kind of conflict may cause the occur or escalation of theother two kinds of conflict;2) the relationship conflict produces negative impact onthe cost performance of projects, which means that once the relationship conflictappears, the cost performance will be negatively influenced;3) the task conflictinfluences the cost performance with an inversed U shape, but the upward side is onlywithin a small scope, which means that the positive impact of the task conflict onlyoccurs when the conflict level increases in a limited scope;4) the conflictmanagement styles do moderate the influence process conflict’s influence on the cost performance; and5) the conflict management styles of accommodating and avoidingwould increase the cost overrun. Besides, the research also finds out that the Chinesecontractors and owners both prefer the smoothing conflict management styles such ascompromising and the accommodating. These results indicate that the interactionistview of conflict suits for the Chinese construction industry to some degree, but thefact that some hypotheses failed the test, such as the negative influence of the processconflict on the cost performance, and the moderating influence of the conflictmanagement styles on the relationship conflict and the task conflict’s impact on thecost performance, shows that some research outcomes resulting from the interactionisttheory should be applied deliberately in Chinese construction industry.Based on the findings and results, some suggestions, such as the conflict managersshould focus on the prevention of the task conflict from causing or escalatingrelationship conflict, and the Chinese contractors and owners should be cautious whenchoosing the accommodating and avoiding styles, were made to serve as a guide formanagers to choose appropriate conflict management styles.