Forces to foster co-operative contracting in construction projects

Abstract

The construction industry is plagued by an increasingly adversarial atmosphere. Lack of co-operation has been identified as one of the major causes of inefficiency in the industry. Promoting co-operative contracting behaviour has long been advocated as a means to improve performance within construction projects. This article presents the results obtained from a survey of 100 construction professionals, with the aim of identifying significant forces that foster co-operative contracting forces in construction projects. The Relative Importance Index (RII) was employed to rank these forces. Based on the RII, the top five most significant forces were identified. They were then divided into three main categories: (1) experience of previous dealings; (2) degree of openness; and (3) degree of involvement. The results obtained from this study shall provide groundwork for further research area of co-operative contracting behaviour.