Evaluation of Cooperation during Project Delivery: Empirical Study on the Hydropower Industry in Southwest China

Abstract

Previous studies agree that cooperation among participants is critical to successfully deliver projects; however, little research has quantitatively illustrated how participants benefit from cooperation. Based on partnering and cooperative game theories, the Degree of Willingness to Cooperate (DWC) model has been used in this study to reflect the interactions among participants through dynamic simulation. With the support of data collected from a field survey, the outcomes of DWC model simulation have been tested, confirming that degrees of willingness to cooperate (DWCs) have significantly positive influences on cooperation gains, and incentives are effective in improving participants' rewards. Application of the DWC model then reveals the cooperation status of hydropower developments in Southwest China, suggesting five practical strategies for inter-organizational cooperation in project delivery. This study advances the knowledge area of multi-organizational dynamics during project delivery by building interdisciplinary linkage between partnering theory and cooperative game theory, which provides a structure to quantitatively unfold the cause-effect relationships between DWCs, incentives, and participants' rewards. This research also reveals the mutual goals and different priorities of project participants, and answers questions on how coalitions can be formed and how cooperation gains should be equitably allocated. The above

Incentive Model Based on Cooperative Relationship in Sustainable Construction Projects

“…Game theory has been used to examine the conflict and cooperation between rational decision makers [32,33]. Game theory provides a useful approach to study the conceptual aspects of construction projects [34][35][36][37], and provides useful insights into the way that the participants utilize the resources under different situations. The grounded model can be used to simulate and analyze the effects of cooperative behavior on the stakeholders' net benefits, the overall project benefits, and the benefits' allocation strategy.…”

Environment Management of Hydropower Development: A Case Study

“…The environment management of hydropower development includes planning, organization, implementation, and control [41]. By studying the Himalaya Dams in India, Grumbine and Pandit demonstrated that the improvement of planning and implementation of environmental protection is crucial to the development of hydropower projects [42].…”

“…To tackle the increase of environment-related disputes, project participants should jointly establish environment management systems and processes and cooperatively solve environmental problems. This would allow participants to clearly understand their responsibilities and have the motivations and necessary resources to achieve environmental protection objectives [41,47,48]. Sternberg indicated that hydropower development should also make environmental technical improvements to minimize environmental influence [49].…”

“…Several hydropower projects have been developed in southwest China [41], a region in which 70.8% of hydropower resources are located [51]. The Yalong River, located in Western Sichuan Province, is an important branch of the Yangtze River where 21 cascade hydropower projects have been planned and built.…”

A model of discrete zero-sum two-person matrix games with grey numbers to solve dispute resolution problems in construction

“…Naderpajouh et al (2014) used it in risk management between developer and opposition in infrastructure developments. Also, game theory has been used in the payment problems (Wu et al 2011), renewal of construction objects (Antuchevičiene et al 2006), cooperation during project delivery (He et al 2016), and post-disaster management (Eid et al 2015). Even some researchers have used game theory in studying the delayed projects (Castro et al2007;Estévez-Fernández 2012).…”