Yan, L; Wang, Y and Ning, Y (2025) Configuring governance mechanisms to improve the engineering consulting project performance. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 151(7): 04025070, ISSN 0733-9364
Abstract
Extensive research has demonstrated the significance of project governance in enhancing project performance. However, previous studies have not dealt with the problem of governance mechanism design for engineering consulting (EC) with intangible outputs. Researchers have overlooked corporate governance and the coupling of project and corporate governance in improving project performance. This study identifies effective governance mechanisms for enhancing EC project performance through the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of survey data collected from Chinese EC professionals. It reveals multiple pathways to achieving high performance in EC projects, including: (1) relational governance matched with governance of project management (GoPM); (2) relational governance; and (3) a combination of contractual governance, relational governance, and GoPM. This study contributes to the body of knowledge on EC project governance with intangible outputs in three ways. First, this paper incorporates corporate governance into the framework of EC project governance, demonstrating that GoPM is the core element for enhancing EC project performance. Second, the improvement in EC project performance stems from the synergistic effect of project and corporate governance mechanisms. Moreover, the relational governance mechanism plays a more crucial role than the contractual governance mechanism in enhancing EC project performance.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | engineering consulting project; fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis; governance mechanisms; governance of project management; project-based organization |
| Index terms: | project performance, project management, governance, fuzzy set, coupling, body of knowledge, corporate governance, qualitative comparative analysis, survey, project-based organization |
| Subjects: | research methods, decision-making and optimization, organization, knowledge management, project management theory and practice, systems engineering, business, data collection methods |
| Topics: | Engineering Principles, Project Management, Organizational Design, Governance, Information Management, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTE |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here