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In the process of undertaking overseas construction projects, relational governance has become indispensable for project stakeholders. This study examines how relational governance influences contractors' adaptability to foreign situations and whether such associations are positively moderated by international environmental complexity.

A crosssectional survey methodology was applied to collect primary data through questionnaires sent to domestic contractors in China and South Korea (hereafter Korea). Multiple regression analysis was used to test the effects of four dimensions of relational governance on contractor adaptability. Thereafter, the Chinese and Korean subsamples were tested separately through moderated regression analysis to explore differences in the influence of relational governance on adaptability.

The results showed that quality communication, favor exchange and establishing an emotional relationship significantly and positively affected a contractor’s adaptability. However, there were significant differences between the Chinese and Korean international contractors in terms of the moderating effects of international environment complexity.

East Asian engagement in international development is not limited to China and Korea alone, and the study should be replicated using large representative samples from more countries, such as Japan, to gain a fuller understanding of the influence of relational governance.

The results have great significance for the managers of international contractors in East Asian countries and contribute to the research on relational governance and contractor adaptability.

The aim of this research is to investigate how foreign firms manage financial and economic risks when operating in China's construction industry. The specific purposes of the paper are to: identify the types of financial and economic risks foreign firms face and the frequency and severity of these risks; examine how foreign firms manage these risks; and recommend a risk management framework that can be adopted by foreign firms to mitigate financial and economic risks in China.

The data collection instrument was a questionnaire which had open‐ended questions. The data collection method was face‐to‐face in‐depth interviews with 22 experts from Singapore who have experience in China's construction industry.

Nine economic and financial risks affecting foreign firms that operate in China's construction industry are found. Of these, the risks that occur frequently and are severe are: labour and material price fluctuation; and contractors/subcontractors' default. Eighteen contractual and general measures were found to be useful in mitigating these risks.

The findings may not be readily generalized because interviews were conducted with 22 China experts, all of whom are from Singapore.

Foreign firms could use the findings to help them decide on the most appropriate measures to adopt, to overcome financial and economic risks that they face when operating in China's construction industry.

The research proposed a framework for foreign firms to use in managing financial and economic risks in China. It recommends different measures to mitigate different types of risks.

This paper aims to analyse the factors affecting the performance of large construction projects in Sri Lanka. The causes, impacts and mitigations in association with the critical factors are explored and discussed.

The research focuses on the evaluation and perspectives of clients and contractors of large projects in Sri Lanka. Combined quantitative and qualitative methods were applied in this research. Initially, a questionnaire survey was conducted with clients and contractors involved in large projects to evaluate the factors affecting the performance of projects and to identify the ten most critical factors. Interviews with the clients and contractors of three large projects were conducted to examine the causes and impacts of the critical factors and the approaches used to mitigate them.

Significant differences in the factors were observed for more than 40 per cent of the total factors under study, the contractors assigning more weight to most of the factors than the clients. The study identified nine internal factors and one external factor as the critical factors. Of these, seven were related to the contractors, which suggested that the contractors have greater roles in defining performance. Lack of management and technical skills of the parties involved, human capacity, lack of understanding and knowledge of the local context, changes in government policies and political interference were identified as significant causes of the critical factors.

The study analysed the factors affecting the performance of large projects in Sri Lanka, which, at the time of research, had just ended a 26-year-long civil war and was pushing the construction of large projects to be competitive. The challenges faced in this effort were explored as lessons learnt that might improve the efficiency and effectiveness of infrastructure development in Sri Lanka. The combined quantitative and qualitative methods applied in this study are expected to provide new insights in the project performance research, especially the interviews of the critical factors to gain an understanding on how the factors occurred and manifested themselves in real projects. The findings are, however, expected to be applicable to other developing countries that are currently aggressively developing their large infrastructure.

This paper aims to investigate how and when different dimensions of trust and contracts interact to influence the development to negotiation strategies. Specifically, it explores how different dimensions of trust and contracts are combined to influence dispute negotiation strategies when cooperation parties have or do not have expectations of continuity.

This paper theoretically identified and empirically examined the interaction effect of trust and contract on dispute negotiation strategies in contractor–subcontractor relationships, by developing a conceptual framework and conducting a questionnaire survey comprising more than 300 disputes in the Chinese construction industry. Hierarchical regression analysis was mainly used to test the hypotheses.

This paper finds that contractual control may weaken the effect of goodwill trust in fostering interest-based strategies in the presence of expectations of continuity, while it may strengthen the effect in the absence of expectations of continuity. Contractual coordination negatively moderates the relationship between goodwill trust and interest-based strategies only when parties have little expectations of continuity. Moreover, contractual control enhances the effectiveness of competence trust on fostering interest-based strategies.

This paper provides insights for practitioners to wisely use different governance mechanisms to manage negotiation strategies and generate desired outcomes of dispute resolution.

This paper provides a nuanced understanding of how the two types of governance mechanisms interact, by considering trust and contract as multi-dimensional constructs. It explicit the boundary conditions of both the substitute and complementary relationship between them.

The construction industry in China is progressing at a rapid pace. There are many important issues to be considered in the Chinese construction industry, not the least of which is the distancing of the design aspects from the construction aspects of a construction project. Integrating design with construction through the buildability concept can yield many benefits relating to time, cost, quality and sustainable environment. The purpose of this paper is to propose how a building design appraisal system (BDAS) may be formalized to benefit the construction industry in China.

This study explains the basic principles of buildability; describes the development and implementation of the BDAS in Singapore; demonstrates how buildability scores can be computed using the BDAS model; and proposes the measures that can be taken in China to populate buildability and formalize a similar BDAS model in the Chinese construction industry.

The construction industry in Singapore has benefited tremendously from the BDAS formalized by the relevant building authorities. The construction industry in Singapore possesses relevant knowledge and expertise in buildability. This skills set can likewise be transferred to China to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Chinese construction industry.

Some countries, like Singapore, have recognized the importance of buildability towards raising overall productivity levels in the construction industry. In the case of Singapore, the implementation of buildability principles in the construction industry have been formalized through the BDAS whose minimum buildability scores must be complied with by all property developments before building plans approvals are given by the relevant building authorities.

There is ample scope for China to review how the BDAS was implemented in Singapore and to consider how such a formalized system can be modified, adapted and transferred for application in the Chinese construction industry.

Making the right bid/no-bid decision is critical to the success and development of construction contracting enterprises. Decision makers’ personal characteristics, such as risk perception and propensity, have great impact on bid/no-bid decisions, which is the major concern of this research. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship among decision makers’ risk perception, risk propensity, and their bid/no-bid decision making of construction projects, as well as the factors influencing the risk perception and propensity.

In total, four hypotheses were proposed based on an extensive literature review. Experimental questionnaires were distributed to employees working in Chinese construction contracting enterprises with knowledge of construction bidding, and 134 valid questionnaires were obtained. Multivariate statistical analysis through SPSS 19.0 was used to analyze the acquired data.

Data analysis shows that in the context of international construction contracting: risk perception has a negative influence on bid/no-bid decision making; while risk propensity produces a positive influence and the probability and magnitude of potential gain or loss both have significant impacts on risk perception, and the probability plays a more important role.

This research studied the bid/no-bid decision making of construction projects from the new perspectives of risk perception and risk propensity of the decision makers.

Disputes are now considered endemic in the construction industry. They often arise from the poor resolution of claims in the course of construction projects. Efforts have been geared towards reducing the incidence of claims. These efforts are of two kinds: those that seek answers from basic principles and legal issues at the pre‐construction phase and those that attempt to solve the problems through claims management procedures at the construction phase. This paper reviews the developments in claims management and highlights the deficiencies in current claims management approaches. It focuses on the need for improvement of the efficiency of claims negotiation and suggests the use of multiagent systems as an approach to achieve it. The potential benefits of the suggested approach are discussed in the concluding section of the paper.

The potentially lucrative construction market in Asia is obviously the target of many international contractors from the west. However, in their clamour for a share of the Asian construction market, international contractors must recognize the peculiarities of Chinese societies while structuring their marketing plans. A clear understanding of these peculiarities and an ability to align themselves with Chinese customs, beliefs and practices would go a long way in helping international contractors win building projects in China. An understanding of the Chinese mind is an important factor for penetrating the Asian business culture. Highlights the “thick face, black heart” concept as an important phenomenon for marketing to the Chinese. It also analyses how an understanding of “thick face, black heart” can help international contractors from the west market their services more effectively in China.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the key issues and challenges in risk management and insurance in the Chinese construction industry and propose solutions to improve risk management.

The study is based on surveys which target people who have direct or relevant experience of risk management and construction insurance in China. Surveys were conducted by e‐mail, mail and fax to selected clients, contractors (project director, project managers, and contract managers/administrators), insurers, brokers, consultants, claim advisors, and academics; and e‐mails to Chinese researchers in the construction management field. Descriptive analysis is used for data analysis.

It is found that cultural considerations inhibit proper implementation of risk management in China's construction industry. It is also found that the perception and attitude of contractors play an important role in developing risk management. Accordingly, an organizational learning of a risk management model is designed and proposed as an organizational learning process through collaborative teamwork to improve risk management and create a learning organization.

The major limitation is the sample size. A much larger sample size allows comparisons among different groups of contractors, regions, etc.

This empirical research identifies the real challenge of application of risk management in China's construction industry. It proposes a realistic organizational learning model through collaborative teamwork which could help Chinese contractors to improve their risk management.

This study aims to explore the combined strategies leading to successful repair of two types of trust in Chinese construction projects and provide an effective guidance and control trust repair in construction projects. During the research period, the author interviewed 150 managers from 50 Chinese construction projects and collected details of 125 violations. The research examines the effect of combined strategy of trust repair in Chinese management scenario.

This study adopted a mixed, quantitative, qualitative and exploratory approach. The author first extracted six strategies, namely, apology, denial, penance, communication, promise and compensation, from the literature review and generalization. Then, the author conducted an interview with 150 managers from 50 China construction projects. And the author analyzed the data through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

When competence-based trust is broken, violators should adopt communication and promise, demonstrate their competence and qualification, and change the attributions of competence from the trustor. When integrity-based trust is broken, violators should apologize, actively admit the mistake, show a positive attitude and seek the forgiveness from the trustor. After reconstructing trustors' perceptions of competence or integrity, violators should also make a promise to trustors for the future. The result of this research not only illustrates the sufficiency and necessity of a single strategy for trust repair but also explores the combination of trust repair strategies that rebuild the trust.

This study is limited to 50 construction projects in the Chinese construction context, so conclusions are limited in application. Data used in this research did not provide an in-depth analysis of trust repair failures. Thus, additional research is needed to explore why trust was not repaired. The study is also limited to examining the Chinese construction project organizations only, and future studies should incorporate organizations in other nations and regions.

Compared with using a single strategy, a combined strategy provides a contribution to the future practice of repair broken relationship between construction project organizations. This research helps to organize decisions and benefits managers, from Chinese owners and contractors, in choosing which of these strategies repair trust. The author also provides a specific combination of strategies to repair relationships for international companies that have conflicts with Chinese construction companies.

This research is among the early studies in China that preliminary examines the combined strategy of trust repair between Chinese owners and contractors by using causal attribution theory and QCA. This study makes a valuable contribution toward combined strategy in construction project and the knowledge system of trust repair. Future studies could build on the findings from the current study to develop a cross-cultural research on trust repair.