Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of clients' trust, opportunism and adaptation on contractual (non)cooperation with a mediating role of coordination in the construction industry.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from employees of the Pakistani construction industry. Smart partial least square (SmartPLS) has been used for analyzing the data of 270 respondents from construction projects.

The results of the SmartPLS indicate that (1) Trust and contract coordination positively while opportunism negatively influence contractor's contractual cooperation. (2) Contract adaptation and contract coordination positively influence the noncontractual cooperation of the contractor. (3) Moreover, contract coordination positively mediates the relationship between trust and noncontractual cooperation, but negatively mediates the relationship between opportunism and contract adaptation and noncontractual cooperation.

The findings of this research suggest several policy implications for administrative authorities, project managers and policymakers. These authorities need to focus on clients' trust, opportunism and adaptation because these factors significantly influence contract coordination and cooperation in the construction industry. Emphasizing these factors will enable project managers to gain economies of scale and mitigate project failure.

To the best of the authors’ search and knowledge, they did not find any study examining the mediating role of coordination between trust, opportunism, adaptation and cooperation in the construction industry. Hence, the present study advances their understanding in the field of project management and construction business.

This study aims to investigate how small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) perceive the benefits and obstacles with university cooperation for themselves and regional development, setting out from the personal relations the parts have formed.

A quantitative approach was adopted, using a sample of 336 Brazilian SMEs that had undertaken some cooperation with universities in the past years.

From structural equation modelling, results show that interpersonal relations interfere in the type of cooperation formed, these being a catalyst in formalizing the cooperation. These relations also interfere in the perception of barriers and benefits of cooperation for the firm.

The results are clearer in the firm domain and less so in the region, implying that university-SME cooperation does not yet present clearly disseminated benefits so that firms can be more aware of the results. The barriers to cooperation seem to be overcome by interpersonal relations but also by the contracts established since they were more evident in the informal type of cooperation.

This study provides more empirical evidence about these relations in a context of low socio-economic development, a topic which is still under-explored in the field of university-firm cooperation.

To cope with the rising pressure for global competitiveness, exporters are increasingly cooperating with their suppliers and customers. This research empirically examines the factors which encourage exporters to cooperate with their major trading partners in international value chains. The results suggest that while there are some differences between customer and supplier relationships, trust, relative dependence and the exporter’s competitive strategy are key variables which encourage exporters to form cooperative trading linkages. The results also suggest that an exporter’s trading relationships are interconnected: an exporter’s cooperation with customers may depend upon its cooperation with suppliers.

The International Labor Organization (2020) estimates that eight out of ten enterprises (i.e. own-account workers and small economic units) are informal worldwide. However, less is known about the internationalization of informal enterprises. Here, it is argued that economic blocs, such as sub-Saharan Africa, with a greater proportion of informal enterprises, may provide broader societal legitimacy for them to operate internationally. Thus, informal firms would need to collaborate with other firms to overcome their resource constraints. Geographic colocation is one way to facilitate positive interfirm interactions that promote networking and subsequently cooperation. The purpose of this paper is, thus, to addresses two questions. Firstly, how and to what extent does interfirm marketing cooperation in geographic colocation influence the internationalization of micro and small informal manufacturing enterprises? Secondly, how do the perceived benefits of local external economies moderate this relationship?

The study draws evidence from 125 randomly selected informal enterprises located in two major clusters in Ghana, using a mixed-method approach.

The partial least square - structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis applied revealed two central points. Firstly, sharing marketing costs allows informal firms to upgrade their phases of export development directly. Secondly, the linkage of increasing sales activities and local external economies encourages the progress of the phases of export development and the scope of internationalization. Results confirm that the cluster benefits of interfirm cooperation and local external economies on the informal firm internationalization process complement each other in addition to their linear relationship.

The study contributes to understanding the nexus of the informal sector, geographic colocation and the entrepreneurial internationalization literature. The results should motivate researchers and policymakers to approach informal firm internationalization through collaborative business activities.

Integrating transaction costs economics and task-technology fit theory, this study distinguishes two categories of social media–enabled interactions, namely task-related interactions and tie-related interactions, and explores the match between these two and firms' use of contracts in achieving safeguarding and coordinating purposes in interfirm governance.

Two studies were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, this study collaborated with a professional market research firm and collected responses from Chinese manufacturing firms in a survey. In Study 2, this study designed a scenario-based experiment and collected 239 participants from the Credamo platform.

This study categorized social media–enabled interactions into task-related interactions and tie-related interactions and conducted two studies to reveal that the safeguarding purpose of contract specificity is amplified by tie-related interactions, whereas the coordinating purpose of contract specificity is strengthened by task-related interactions.

This study assumes that firms permit and encourage the use of social media. However, some firms might prohibit the use of social media due to risk issues, or their partners may be prohibited from using social media.

Given that social media–enabled interactions have joint effects with contracts in achieving safeguarding and coordinating purposes, a firm's employees should match their goals with an appropriate type of social media–enabled interactions.

This study enriches the interfirm governance literature by uncovering the roles of these two types of interactions in matching contract specificity to achieve safeguarding and coordinating purposes, which provides actionable insights for managers in governing interfirm relationships.

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of national and international R&D support programmes on firms’ technology scouting, defined as firms’ use of external knowledge sources.

Drawing on a unique data set on R&D support programmes for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in both manufacturing and service sectors across 28 European countries, this study reports treatment effects estimated by the copula-based endogenous switching model, which takes into account unobserved firm heterogeneity.

Empirical results indicate that R&D support programmes have heterogeneous effects on technology scouting. In particular, a crowding-out effect arises in the case of informal sources of external knowledge, whereas additional effects are reported for formal, strategic sources.

For informal sources of external knowledge, a random distribution of R&D measures would have a substantially larger effect rather than using current selection criteria.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the policy effects on technology scouting applying a copula-based endogenous switching model. Most cross-sectional empirical studies use matching estimators, although their main disadvantage is the selection on observables.

A multiplex relation occurs when actors share different roles, actions, or affiliations that overlap in a relationship, such as co-workers who are also friends outside of work. Although multiplex relations are as varied as they are pervasive and often problematic, we know surprisingly little about when, under what circumstances, and exactly how overlapping ties affect social relations. Do they strengthen or weaken relationships? When do relationships become multiplex? How do they affect networks at large? In this chapter, we review notable studies that exist on this topic and suggest key questions and issues for future research. Our goal in particular is to suggest how exchange theory could contribute to these efforts.

An assessment of Axel Honneth’s reception and appropriation of Hegel’s theory of normative reconstruction as presented in his Freedom’s Right (Columbia University Press, 2014).

A comparative assessment of Honneth’s and Hegel’s approach to normative reconstruction focusing on three basic issues: general methodology, understandings of the logic and program of the Philosophy of Right, and analyses and assessments of modern market societies as detailed in Hegel’s account of civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft).

For Honneth, normative reconstruction consists in reworking modes of social rationality already realized in modern institutions. By contrast, Hegel is shown to advance an approach to reconstruction in which an account of social rationality is properly fashioned only in the reconstruction process itself. In this way Hegel is also shown to proffer an approach to normative reconstruction that is at once more robustly reconstructive and more robustly normative than is the case with Honneth.

The paper demonstrates the ongoing value of Hegel’s thought for social and political theory. It illuminates Hegel’s uniquely dialectical approach to immanent social critique, dedicated not only to explicating existing tensions and “bifurcations” (Entzweiungen) but – with the help of a distinctive account of Bildung (cultivation or formation) – to engaging those tensions and bifurcations in order to delineate the conditions for their constructive supersession. It also elucidates different ways in which critical social theorists, committed to notions of “immanent transcendence,” draw on the resources of market societies to mount normative challenges to the aporias of those societies.

Public–private joint ventures (PPJVs) have a stronger partnership element than standard public–private partnerships (PPPs) but PPJVs are under-researched despite this important partnership element. This article derives knowledge of incentives and barriers to goal alignment in healthcare PPJVs.

An in-depth case study of the UK’s Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) model including three PPJVs and 34 individual projects was conducted.

The main economic incentives are future opportunities creating a strong shadow of the future. This is supplemented by social incentives such as the ability to have a social impact. Enlarging the shadow of the future can encourage both parties to think long-term, avoiding short-term opportunism.

PPJV is a promising model for partnership. However, complexity through fragmented public sector partners and the financial structure can create barriers for goal alignment.

This study challenges earlier research studies based on PPJV by providing evidence that the long-term nature of PPJV, especially the potential of new projects, enables the public sector to get more engagement from the private sector.

Since the emergence of partnering in the construction industry in the late 1980s, it has received a great deal of attention from practitioners and researchers. The published research that is presented in the major journals typically advocates guidelines and models for implementing partnering. To date, however, no paper has attempted to summarize and present a critique of the existing partnering literature. This paper, therefore, reviews the partnering literature that has been published in four high quality rating journals, these being Construction Management and Economics. ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management and ASCE Journal of Management in Engineering. It is concluded that there were four major themes of empirical studies, which were research on project partnering, examining a dual relationship, international partnering and a special application of partnering. Moreover, nonempirical studies were classified as the types of partnering, partnering models, partnering processes and partnering structure. The review provided in this paper ‘polishes the signposts’ and offers new directions for partnering research and its application in construction. Future studies are recommended to emphasize on the identification of performance measures and critical success factors, development and test of partnering models and processes, and the formation and selection of partnering strategy.