Managing power, conflict and change: an analytical model for construction contract procurement

Project team members working for Hong Kong construction projects perceive significant relationships between politics, conflicts and project changes. Project changes set ready the latent conditions for conflictual situations as well as political actions. Political actions subsequent to project changes serve as the trigger of conflicts and further project changes. These two sequences of act or potential act repeat from one episode to another and are inherent among project team members throughout the entire project life cycle. Various project and personal characteristics are found to be influential to the outcome of politics and conflicts arising from project changes. Representatives from client and contractor side have quite different points of view over politics, conflicts and project changes. Construction professionals from different disciplines also have significantly different opinions. Project team members from different age groups and with different industrial experience view the occurrence and intensity of politics, conflicts and project changes in very different ways. Current research does not provide sufficient theoretical grounds for these phenomena. New focus on demographics of project organization is highly recommended. Obligatory passage points formed by project team members at different project stages have some regularity in projects of different sizes. Project team members in mega projects tend to form small obligatory passage points controlling very specific professional knowledge, skills and rules of practice, while those in small projects very often work together to tackle cross-disciplinary problems. Client representatives are used to dominate in the form of big obligatory passage points before physical works are commenced at design stage, whereas contractor representatives take the lead after physical works have begun. Nevertheless, each project team member specializes in his own position contributing to the project. Cross-disciplinary practices are very rare in Hong Kong construction industry. The case-specific nature of politics, conflicts and project changes renders practical research very restrictive, and researchers usually goes for qualitative case study. Taking the theorized and testified interrelationships among politics, conflicts and project changes, more in-depth obtrusive field research is more appropriate in the next level of study. Event-based research approaches are highly recommended.