Anna Kadefors

Institutions in building projects: Implications for flexibility and change

Building practice is often studied from a project management perspective, a view that stresses the temporary and unique aspects of the project organizations. However, the organization of building projects, as well as the buildings produced, varies little between projects. This homogeneity suggests that the building sector is subject to strong institutionalization. The findings of a building project case study are used to illustrate the different kinds of institutions in Swedish building. It is concluded that the strong institutions are related to a great need for coordination and communication in complex project organizations. The institutionalization could explain why initiatives generated by individual projects and companies seldom bring about long-term change in building.

Fairness in interorganizational project relations: norms and strategies

There is a strong preference for fairness in human interaction, so that people who experience unfairness tend to react with anger, resentment and loss of motivation. Concerns to appear fair influence the behaviour of both individuals and firms. Perceptions of fairness are susceptible to framing and may be influenced by various norms for outcome distribution as well as by decision processes and interpersonal relations. This paper deals with causes and effects of fairness perceptions in construction project relations, mainly fixed price contracts procured by competitive tendering. In such projects, uncertainty results in continuous post contract award problem‐solving and negotiations, and fairness concerns may have incremental but significant influence on the terms of exchange. Case studies of client–contractor interaction in two projects are used to discuss of how fairness norms relate to strategies and industry culture. It is concluded that that an intuitive cost‐based norm of fair pricing shapes interaction in construction projects, but that consequences vary between projects. The norm may favour contractors, but is also related to poor risk management and client distrust. To improve performance, clients need to design procurement practices and communication so that perceptions of contractor losses are counteracted.

Contracting in FM: collaboration, coordination and control

Purpose – As public authorities and private companies increasingly outsource facilities management services to external suppliers, a new service industry with its own culture and contracting practices is developing. The aim of this paper is to examine how procurement processes and contract models relate to trust and collaboration in interorganizational relationships in FM.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on interviews with leading Swedish clients, consultants and service providers.Findings – Contract‐related formalization serves purposes of learning and coordination as well as of performance control. Thus, services need different contract design and different management depending on the interaction patterns they entail. Detailed specifications and monitoring may be needed in order to increase mutual understanding, build trust and foster a sustainable industry‐level contracting culture.Research limitations/implications – The findings refer to the Swedish situation, where the legal role of t...

Collaboration in public construction—contractual incentives, partnering schemes and trust

It is increasingly common that public construction projects are procured and managed with explicit intentions to establish closer collaboration between partners. Opportunities for negotiation and the freedom to choose partners are more restricted in a public setting than in a private one. Thus, many relational requirements that are generally considered essential to trust-based collaboration are more difficult to fulfil. Based on two case studies from the Netherlands and one from Sweden, we investigate how this formalized context, including formal partnering models to support relationship management, influences relational development in public sector construction contracts. Collaboration is primarily needed in projects where uncertainty is high and exchange conditions cannot be comprehensively defined. The contractual ambiguities, together with the limited opportunities for pre-contractual sense-making and relationship-building, imply that the early post-contractual phase is of significantly higher importance in public projects than in private ones. After signing a contract, it is important that the parties use the interpretive flexibility to signal trust and commitment and also that joint learning processes are organized to resolve ambiguities and enable joint learning. Formal partnering models are helpful in structuring this interaction, but also incentive arrangements may be important in shaping interaction and signalling trust.

The roles and risks of incentives in construction projects

In construction projects, financial incentives such as target cost arrangements are often considered essential to create joint goals and support collaboration, especially in partnering relationships. Still, research has shown that many incentive schemes are limited and inconsistent and that management is often lacking in rigour. A starting point for this paper is that a wider framework of the roles and effects is needed to understand practitioner strategies for the design and management of financial incentives. Based on the literature on motivation and trust and an interview survey with Swedish clients and contractors, we identify three roles of financial incentives in interorganisational relationships: sources of extrinsic motivation, symbols of trust and efficiency and generators of communication processes. Symbolic roles are primarily related to the expectations and perceptions of trust and efficiency in the early stages, while process aspects influence the development of constructive collaboration as the relationship unfolds. Four client strategies are described, differing in the degree of elaboration and relational orientation, and we conclude that both practitioners and researchers need to consider all three incentive roles to understand the full range of effects of a particular strategy.

Building users, owners and service providers: new relations and their effects

Corporate real estate management has undergone important changes in many countries. In recent years, companies have increasingly sold their facilities to external independent investors or placed their real estate in semi‐independent subsidiaries. Both manufacturing companies and real estate companies increasingly prefer to buy facilities management services from external contractors. This implies that new relations between users, owners and service providers emerge, where roles are separated in different legal entities without ownership links and are related to each other by explicit and formal contracts. This paper describes the Swedish development and discusses consequences for roles, relations and decision processes. Three key research areas are identified: how space supply and service management may be related to strategic levels of the core business; management of formal and informal aspects of interfirm relations over time; and decision making in the area of flexibility, generality and user adaptation of workspace.

Municipal consultancy procurement: new roles and practices

The shift in municipal procurement of construction-related services from technical departments to central departments of procurement has significant impacts on the selection criteria and processes. These new roles and decision-making contexts (increased regulative complexity, stricter control and outsourcing of wider ranges of municipal services) are examined for how they shape procurement practices for architectural and engineering services in Swedish municipalities. Based on a critical theoretical review of policy implementation and inter-professional collaboration, the purchasing practices of five Swedish municipalities are examined and compared through case study interviews to understand the relationships and practices that occur between technical and procurement staff. Resource constraints and stricter control are found to lead to a strong preference, especially among technical staff, for simplified procurement models with a high emphasis on lowest price, whilst procurement staff favour more advanced methods for quality assessment. However, differences in knowledge and professional culture between the technical staff and procurement staff have created barriers to communication and competence integration. To develop a procurement practice that rewards supplier competence, clearer guidelines and changes to procurement roles within the client organization are needed, as well as increased resources. Procurement policies need to be more closely tied to their implementation.

Editorial: establishing collaboration in public engineering projects

In many countries, there is a trend towards an increased use of models for collaborative contracting for infrastructure projects, both in the private and the public sector. Several forces drive this development: a general dissatisfaction with current construction costs and quality, increased technical complexity and uncertainty in projects, a shift of the allocation of risks and costs from the public to the private sector, higher demands for innovation, the strive for sustainability, the importance of lifecycle performance of buildings, and the development of new information technology. Especially for projects in the public domain, the influence of the institutional and social context is important to take into account since they have a significant impact on the design of project organizations. Two years ago, we proposed to the editors of the Engineering Project Organizational Journal (EPOJ) to launch a special issue on collaboration in public engineering projects. During the preparations of a dedicated workshop at the MISBE 2011 conference in Amsterdam, we further explored the particular challenges faced by engineering projects in the public domain. At EPOC 2011, several papers were presented on this topic. The issues addressed at both conferences referred to the specific formal context in which the project partners are selected, to the bureaucratic culture of public agencies, and to the volatility of the political environment. They also showed the complexity and opportunities raised by the informal expectations of the stakeholders. It has been our privilege to assemble papers for this special issue providing new insights on this important theme. We hope that addressing these issues will inspire other researchers to specifically address the implications of a public context for the management of engineering projects. The institutional settings have strong implications for the management and procurement of projects. Because of procurement laws designed to ensure values such as transparency, objectivity and equal treatment, the public context does not leave much room for trustbased partner selection, joint contract development, and successive adjustment of contractual obligations. The collaborative practices that have arisen in response to the dissatisfaction with traditional ways of working include partnering contracts, alliance arrangements and other forms of public private cooperation, such as public private partnerships (PPPs). However, despite the large attention to partnerships in practice and academic literature and the considerable market share for public construction, few studies focus specifically on the consequences of new forms of collaborative governance for the performance of public projects and the implications for procuring and managing publicly owned assets. The special issue, therefore, focuses on contemporary practice in organizing and contracting inter-organizational collaboration in the construction industry, both at an institutional and managerial level of projects in the public domain. The papers deal with a variety of themes relating to collaborative governance approaches in a range of countries and sectors. The special issue thus offers a broad overview of trends and developments in many parts of the world: India, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Greece. The contributions include many interesting and innovative cases. The differences in level of analysis, methodology, and research methods lead to a variety of new insights. The first article by Gajendran and Brewer describes the problems of collaboration that arise in a project procured using traditional methods. They show how the contextual issues impact collaboration within an extension project of an Australian healthcare facility. Their study focuses on how the incentive structure and rigid communication channels affect trust and social relationships. The authors argue that collaboration occurs in two stages: development of a collective identity and translating this identity into synergistic action. Especially, the combination of the formal governance mechanisms and the sensitive political context of the client organization led to a negative collaborative climate. The analysis resulted in the identification of five contextual issues impacting collaboration in a public engineering project, which could be used for further research. The article of Paisiou and Van Wezemael shows how institutional regulations influence the selection of an architect in a longitudinal case study. For more than three decades, the Greek government has been The Engineering Project Organization Journal (September 2012) 2, 109–111

Designing and implementing incentives for engineering consultants: encouraging cooperation and innovation in a large infrastructure project

In large infrastructure projects, important decisions are made in early design phases. For a client, a key issue is how to stimulate innovative joint performance within the design team. This paper investigates the process of designing and implementing bonuses for cooperation and innovation in a large urban railway tunnel project. Data were collected through non-participatory observations, documents, interviews and a survey. Previous research has shown that incentives influence performance positively or negatively depending on task contents and perceived intentions, but also that people tend to underestimate this complexity and over-emphasize the power of incentives. Based on case observations, effects of bonuses for engineering consultants are discussed in relation to client awareness and management resources. The case results suggest that there are low risks for negative effects on task motivation of design consultants if incentives are low-stakes and not tied to specified performance. However, for low-stake incentives to add value, symbolic roles and the communication processes generated by the incentive scheme need to be strategically and purposefully managed. We conclude that research is needed to guide clients in considering a wider range of measures for enabling innovation and collaboration in design teams.