The Influence Of Task Conflict Event Strength On Cooperation In Construction Projects

Due to the complexity and information asymmetry of construction projects,it is difficult to avoid inter-organizational conflicts in the process of project implementation.Project conflict management is an important research field.Cooperation is a conflict resolution method that can promote project performance.Existing research focuses on the influence of organizational stability characteristics on cooperation.The characteristics of conflict,such as conflict strength,also affect organizational behavior.However,empirical studies on the impact of conflict strength on cooperation are contradictory,and most studies have focused on the overall conflict strength at the project level.However,events experienced by organizations also significantly affect and change organizations.Therefore,this study aims to explore the impact of conflict strength on cooperation and the impact of contract complexity and trust on the above relationship.Based on the Event System Theory,the strength of task conflict events is classified as novel,critical and disruptive.By analyzing 241 data collected from Chinese construction industry owners and contractors to test the hypothesis,this study find that novelty is negatively correlated with cooperation,but criticality and disruption are positively correlated with cooperation.Contractual control and competency trust weaken the positive impact of criticality on cooperation,but competency trust positively moderates the impact of disruption on cooperation.The moderating effect of goodwill trust is opposite to that of competence trust.Goodwill trust positively moderates the effect of criticality on cooperation,and negatively moderates the effect of disruption on cooperation.Different from the previous project-level conflict management studies,this study focuses on construction project conflict management at the event level,which provides empirical support for the theory.In addition,by studying the complexity and the regulating effect of the trust and contract complexity,this study provides a finer granularity construction industry practitioners of conflict management guidance: the owner and the contractor can assess each conflict event strength to resolve conflict with contract and trust,to help both sides to obtain ideal results.