Relationship between contractual flexibility and contractor’s cooperative behavior: The mediating effect of justice perception
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 16 April 2018
Issue publication date: 2 May 2018
Abstract
Purpose
Due to the increasing risk and uncertainty of construction projects, contractual flexibility has been considered as an effective tool to cope with emergences and to promote cooperation between owners and contractors. However, in practice, owners often failed to build an efficient cooperative relationship via contracts, resulting in a lacking of appropriate justice. Furthermore, due to a lack of available empirical research, the influence of contractual flexibility on the cooperative behavior of contractors requires further investigation. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by conducting empirical research from the perspective of justice perception.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model was developed and a series of hypotheses were proposed. Then, partial least squares structural equation modeling analyses were conducted on a sample of 188 respondents.
Findings
The results show that contractual content and executing flexibility both have a positive influence on the cooperative behavior of a contractor, which was partially mediated by distribution, procedural, and interactional justice perceptions. Moreover, content flexibility has a significant impact on all three types of justice perception, and the execution of flexibility has more impact on interactional justice compared to other justice perceptions.
Originality/value
The findings contribute to an improved understanding of how contractual flexibility affects the cooperative behavior of contractors, indicating that the owner could develop a fair exchange relationship through flexible contracting and motivation of the other party.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study received funding support from the project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Number 71372085), which should have the authors’ acknowledgment. Meanwhile, the authors also express the sincere thanks to all respondents who kindly offered us the valuable research data, and interviewees who made the efforts to provide us constructive feedback.
Citation
Song, H., Zhu, F., Klakegg, O.J. and Wang, P. (2018), "Relationship between contractual flexibility and contractor’s cooperative behavior: The mediating effect of justice perception", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 382-405. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-07-2017-0088
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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