Relational Contracting Conceptual Model for Public Sector Construction Organisations: An Indian Context

Abstract

Adoption of relational contracting in public sector construction organisations is more difficult than in private sector organisations due to the inherent rigidity of public sector. Therefore, implementation of the relational contracting processes should be treated as an organisational change management process in public sector organisations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a relational contracting conceptual model (RCMM) by integrating success factors for positive change management in public sector organisations. A qualitative research methodology comprising two rounds of expert interviews was used. The first round of interviews was conducted to gauge the present level of relational contracting in public sector construction organisations. The second round of interviews was conducted to validate the relational contracting conceptual model by integrating success factors of change management in public sector organisations. The relational contracting model highlighted the importance of a need to develop a vision for partnering, stakeholder analysis and consensus building among them, empowerment of operational level employees and their participation in plan execution, time bound review meetings of top management on site to show commitment, resolution of disputes and fast decision making along with publication of the performance reports. The paper presents a critical insight on relational processes of public sector construction organisations in India in the context of organisational change management model which has not been the focus in majority of the previous research studies.

An assessment of facilitative leadership, communication quality and trust on public-private partnership success

“…Tawalare and Laishram (2018) report that communication is essential for relational contracting success, and they define relational contracting as a partnership or alliance in India's public sector construction organisation. The importance of communication in a partnership setting has also been established in a study by Ee et al (2013a, 2013b), who investigate the impact of communication on business process outsourcing success in Malaysia’s banking industry.…”

“…Trust, leadership and communication quality have been found to play an essential role in determining performance in teams as well as organisational and interorganisational relationships, including in the public–private partnership (PPP) setting (Mohr and Spekman, 1994; Jacobson and Choi, 2008; Ee et al , 2013a; Gesell, 2014; Robert and You, 2018; Tawalare and Laishram, 2018; Warsen et al , 2018, 2019; Tawalare et al , 2020). Effective leadership is vital in PPP settings because past studies have found that leadership directly impacts a project’s outcome (Hauschildt et al , 2000; Shenhar et al , 2002; Nixon et al , 2012; Laureani and Antony, 2016).…”

Project Delivery Systems: The Partnering Concept in Integrated and Non-Integrated Construction Projects

“…In order to highlight this concept, some researchers [7,15,21,22] have established a continuum of partnerships that outlines four main stages: competition, cooperation, collaboration, and coalescence. Moreover, "competition" describes the typical owner-contractor relationship, where every party pursues distinct objectives and "working together" is not emphasized.…”

How relational contract theory influence management strategies and project outcomes: a systematic literature review

“…Third, Project Alliance (PA) is widely employed in the Australian and Finnish public sector (Walker and Lloyd-Walker 2015) and involves a joint contract where all parties share risk in design and construction phases. Fourth, Project Partnering (PP) involves either a legally binding contract or a voluntary non-contractual agreement between partners (Hall et al 2018, Tawalare andLaishram 2018). PP consists of two or more parties who work together to achieve specific business objectives (Eriksson 2010).…”