A Conflict Study Of Chinese Construction Project Multicultural Teams

Conflicts within construction project teams are virtually inevitable as construction project teams face severe pressure to execute their projects within the binds of the triple-constraint triangle(meeting time,cost,and quality expectations).In alignment with The Belt and Road Initiative,Chinese construction companies are executing many construction endeavors abroad and continue to seek overseas construction and infrastructure project opportunities.Working abroad in a foreign environment can be confusing for many Chinese companies as'business as usual'often simply does not work.In addition to the new rules and customs within the foreign country,managing and participating in a multicultural construction project team has its own great challenges and these challenges can result in conflicts if they are not managed properly.Reducing unnecessary conflicts leads to more time and energy being allocated on the construction project and project tasks rather than using these valuable resources on issues and conflict management.The importance of using time and energy efficiently in projects emphasizes the importance of studying conflicts in multicultural construction project teams.The purpose of this research study was to identify the influencing factors that lead to conflicts and study their relationship quantitatively through the development of a Partial Least Squares Equation Modeling(PLS-SEM)algorithm.Initial findings suggested a number of factors that lead to conflicts and after these were analyzed,mechanisms to reduce conflicts and improve project team environments were proposed.It is also suggested that further research into conflict in construction project teams should consider looking at construction conflicts in different countries and with participants of different nationalities.Further research is still needed to figure out what other factors result in ineffective issue management and lead to conflicts in multicultural construction project teams under the jurisdiction of persons from different nationalities.