Antecedents and Consequences of Trust and Satisfaction in Main Contractor and Subcontractor Relationship

Abstract

Recently, the concept of developing a good relationship was adapted in the construction project environment. The project participants are realizing that the trust and satisfaction are the key elements of relationship success. Main contractors played an important role in the most projects in the construction field, also commonly referred to as subcontractors. The objective of this research is to determine the complementary role of satisfaction and trust in building and enhancing the relationship between main contractor and subcontractor. This research began with the introduction of the theoretical framework comprising six dimensions sourced from the literature describing attributes of the relationship, such as contractor’s competence, motivation, reputation, communication, shared values, and conflict handling that may affect trust and satisfaction.

Influence of subcontractors' “strategic capabilities” on “power”, “dependence” and “collaboration”: an empirical analysis in the context of procurement decisions

“…Successful execution of construction projects is constrained by several challenges, with one of them being unproductive subcontractor-main contractor interactions (Gurgun and Koc, 2020). Much of the past research on subcontractors and procurement has focussed mostly on risk allocation (Rahman et al, 2020;Artpairin and Pinmanee, 2022), pre-qualification (Tsao et al, 2019), partnering (Tan et al, 2017) and health and safety engagement (Bemelmans et al, 2012;Polat, 2016). Also, excessive bargaining power held by the main contractor over subcontractors in most instances leads to unacceptable risk allocations and unsettled claims causing disputes (Tomczak and Ja skowski, 2020).…”

“…The subcontractor's power is evident when they can (a) withstand indifferent behaviour from the main contractor (Yan and Zhang, 2020;Zheng et al, 2020), (b) have access to better project information than the main contractor (Xue et al, 2020;Yan and Zhang, 2020) and (c) oppose the main contractor's decisions (Rahman et al, 2020;Shukla, 2020).…”

“…Secondly, for successful completion of projects, main contractors need to understand their dependence on their subcontractors to make strategic partnering decisions (Hampton et al, 2012). Especially when a subcontractor's products/services are unique (Kim and Choi, 2020;Rahman et al, 2020), commercially important (Xue et al, 2020) and of high utility to the main contractor (Mellado et al, 2019), the main contractor will have greater dependence on subcontractors Strategic capabilities of a subcontractor (Barman and Charoenngam, 2017;Deep et al, 2020). Hence, the main contractors will have to depend on subcontractors with strategic capabilities and choose to partner with subcontractors.…”

“…A subcontractor can make main contractors dependent on them when they (a) demonstrate a high level of competence (Rahman et al, 2020), and (b) when they share an equal amount of risk with main contractors and demonstrate a high level of professionalism (Loosemore et al, 2020;Lotfi et al, 2020;Mwesigwa et al, 2020).…”

“…, 2020), (b) have access to better project information than the main contractor (Xue et al. , 2020; Yan and Zhang, 2020) and (c) oppose the main contractor's decisions (Rahman et al. , 2020; Shukla, 2020).…”