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The purpose of this research is to discover the behavior of dispute resolution in the Malaysian construction industry by analyzing factors that affect the selection of dispute resolution methods using factor analysis approach.

Preliminary interviews and a questionnaire survey were conducted. Dispute resolution methods were grouped and discussed together, based on the similarity of their characteristics, and used for the questionnaire survey. This research approach is different from the earlier studies that mostly focused on a single dispute resolution method. The data were further analyzed with factor analysis. This improved the data interpretation.

Seven latent factors were extracted and revealed that the contractors and developers preferred alternative dispute resolution (ADR). However, the appreciation of the outcomes of ADR was perceived to be very low. Arbitration and litigation were in part accepted and agreed upon by the respondents.

The combined results from the literature review on the stages of dispute resolution and the latent factors affecting the selection of dispute resolution methods could assist in decision making. The selection of ADR or non‐ADR itself is not a major issue; rather, there is a concern for increased efficiency and an appreciation of the methods in the construction industry are more demanding.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse factors that affect contractors’ behavioural strategies in resolving disputed claims.

Factors were explored by a literature review and an open-ended questionnaire survey. In total, 9 hypotheses involving 12 factors were developed accordingly. Then a structured questionnaire survey was conducted, and 248 valid questionnaires were received from Chinese contractors. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was employed to test the hypotheses.

Factors that have the largest impacts on the contractual approach and the relational approach regarding obliging and compromising are favourability of evidence, time pressure and reputation, respectively. Unexpected results show that obliging behaviours are negatively correlated with procedural fairness but positively correlated with occurrence time of the dispute.

The results are based on correlation, although the research design improves the internal validity. Furthermore, this study belongs to single-level research. In the future, researchers can conduct multilevel research to enrich theories.

The findings not only enhance practitioners’ understanding of the factors influencing contractors’ behavioural strategies when dealing with disputed claims, but also offer insights into both parties’ ex ante focus of attention on specific factors to facilitate the subsequent dispute resolution.

This study furnishes a nuanced picture of multiple factors’ impacts on contractors’ behavioural strategies of claim-related dispute resolution, and thus supplements the relevant construction dispute management literature. From the perspective of contractual governance, it is one of those exploring drivers of contract application in problem situations. It extends the body of knowledge on this topic and hopefully will encourage more research on contractual governance from the reactive perspective.

This study aims to propose a framework of bias in construction project dispute resolution (CPDR hereafter).

With reference to the literatures on effects of bias, manifestations of bias in CPDR were developed. Based on data obtained from construction professionals about their frequency of having these bias manifestations, the underlying constructs of biased behaviors were explored by a principal component factor analysis. A confirmatory factor analysis was further conducted to validate the framework of bias in CPDR.

Four types of bias were identified as the constructs that underlie biased behaviors in CPDR. These four biases were included in the bias framework proposed: preconception, self-affirmation, optimism and interest-oriented. The potency of these types of bias was also evaluated.

First, the findings inform that the existence of bias in CPDR is real. Early detection allows management to intervene and steer CPDR team back to rational courses. Second, this study suggests optimizing CPDR procedures to diminish the chance of bias occurring.

Bias is almost an uncharted area in CPDR. The study fills this research gap by conceptualizing the underlying constructs of biased behaviors. The findings inform construction professionals of the likelihood of practicing biased behaviors in CPDR. Repeated dispute decisions in the commonly used multi-tiered dispute resolution process would enable the creeping in of biases.

The paper aims to examine the perceptions of three major stakeholders – bankers, lawyers and customers – in the Islamic banking industry in Malaysia to assess their behavioural intention to use the proposed online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism.

The study modifies the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) within the context of ODR and its feasibility in the Malaysian Islamic banking industry. The model was extended to include trust in technology and trust in bank, which might have significant influences on the intentions of major stakeholders to use ODR for banking-related disputes. Actual use of the ODR was not included in the model as specified in the original UTAUT. Based on an internet survey, responses were obtained from about 109 respondents. The data obtained were subjected to multivariate statistical analyses.

Results obtained indicate that trust in technology and effort expectancy are the most influencing determinants of the behavioural intention to use ODR among stakeholders in the Islamic banking industry in Malaysia. However, performance expectancy and social influence did not produce significant effects on behavioural intention.

Applying ODR in the banking industry in Malaysia will contribute to sustainable banking businesses in major Islamic finance jurisdictions. Being the most advanced region in global Islamic banking business, Asia sets the pace through theoretical and empirical studies in exploring innovative ideals such as ODR to promote sustainable business that not only ensures proper customer relationship management but also promotes consume protection.

Results obtained suggest that the increasing use of internet banking will make ODR the preferable mechanism for dispute resolution in small-scale disputes in retail banking. This will also require some form of predictability, enforceability and Shari‘ah compliance in the process of dispute resolution for the major stakeholders to have full confidence in the ODR mechanism. The recently introduced Financial Ombudsman Scheme in the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 of Malaysia is expected to serve as a good legal basis for the ODR mechanism.

This appears to be one of the earliest attempts to examine the application of ODR in resolving Islamic banking disputes with a detailed analysis on its legal basis and implication.

Disputes frequently occur on engineering and construction projects. In this paper it is argued that these disputes need to be evaluated and managed, with proper attention being paid to planning of time and money. Since the way in which dispute management is approached will depend on the perceived self‐interest of the parties, it is imperative that disputants have a sensible measure of their self‐interest. ‘Traditional’ probabilistic risk assessment techniques are shown to be of assistance and can be used to compute appropriate dispute management strategies. By way of example, a Monte Carlo simulation of a dispute is performed and discussed.

This paper describes the experiences and the contentious issues on eight existing PPAs in Nepal with varying type of investment, the key areas where IPPs are treated fairly and the areas where IPPs are discriminated against by the clauses are highlighted. Power Purchase Agreements on IPPs in Nepal are of three types: with foreign investment, local investment and investment in JV with the Utility. A critical issue in designing power purchase agreements is to create a level playing field for the players to secure successful and sustainable IPPs and PPAs. To create this environment, discriminatory clauses or unequal treatment to IPPs in the key issues of the PPAs should be avoided; the key issues being power purchase guarantees, force majeure guarantees, financial and foreign exchange guarantees, operation guarantees, and guarantees concerning insurance and dispute resolution. The analysis shows that discriminatory clauses and unequal treatment are present in the key issues of the agreements.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is endeavor of paramount importance that is likely to redefine socio-economic relations in countries and regions concerned. The debate on BRI’s relevance, scope, and potential has only begun, and it remains uncertain how exactly it will unfold. In this context, questions pertinent to regulatory frameworks in the context of which BRI initiatives are implemented belong to the most complex and the most interesting ones. Due to BRI’s novelty and open-endedness, all matters pertaining to its implementation are of exploratory nature; especially the legal aspects of its implementation. This aim of this chapter is to provide insightful answers to legal questions regarding BRI and dispute resolution via the examination of the current legal status of BRI, as well as explore how trust and cultural awareness can contribute to the avoidance of business-related disputes.

While a considerable amount of research has been conducted on construction disputes, disputes remain prevalent in the construction industry and have still been a crucial problem in the Turkish construction industry as well. The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of different stakeholders on key factors that contribute to construction disputes by adopting a qualitative approach.

The qualitative approach adopted for the study provided gathering in-depth and rich information about the topic. To explore the phenomenon in-depth information, semi-structured interviews were conducted. A total of 38 interviews were conducted among experts and practitioners who engaged in construction disputes.

Content analysis of interview data resulted in the emergence of varying categories relevant to the problems which result in construction disputes. By grouping related themes into main categories, the analysis yielded five major ones: clarity of the contract form, errors in contract documents, payments, changes, delays and not granting extension of time.

The major limitations are having interviewees from one country and results limited to the Turkish construction industry.

The findings provide insight on the factors contributing to construction disputes as perceived by different stakeholders, which should provide guidance to determine the associated risks for dispute occurrence, make effort to mitigate disputes once they happen, take proper precautions for minimizing the effects and after all make a significant contribution in the successful accomplishment of completed construction projects.

The findings of the study contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to construction disputes through a qualitative approach which is limited in the related literature. Although the qualitative exploration only focuses on the Turkish construction industry, the study has added significantly to the body of knowledge within the subject area.

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are notoriously prone to disputes among stakeholders, some of which may unduly jeopardize contract performance. Contract disputes arising in Iran are often due to inefficiency of PPP concession agreements and practice. This study presents a causal-predictive model of the root causes and preventive measures for inter-organization disputes to enhance the likelihood of achieving desirable performance in PPP projects.

A theoretical “causal-predictive” model was developed with fourteen hypotheses based on extant literature and contractual agency theory, which resulted in the creation of a pool of 110 published items. Data were obtained from a questionnaire survey with 75 valid responses, completed by 4 stratified groups of Iranian PPP experts. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for validating the proposed model via a case study.

Results reveal that the main three factors of PPP desirable performance are as follows: on-time project completion, high quality of activities/products and services for public satisfaction. Further, the most influential factors of the lifecycle problems, construction stage, and preferred risk allocation included risk misallocation, improper payment mechanism and failure to facilitate a timely approval process.

For researchers, the findings contribute to the theory of contractual agency; specifically, how different influences among the model's elements lead to better PPP performance. In practical terms, proposed outcome-based strategies will inform PPP stakeholders to avoid dispute occurrence and thus improve the time, quality and services of projects.

Justice, although well developed in the organisational field, has not been given adequate attention in the area of construction project dispute negotiations. Based on previous studies, the purpose of this paper is to more elaborately discuss whether each dimension of justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) is important for negotiators to cooperate in construction project dispute negotiation and whether their impact was moderated by the completeness of construction contract.

A survey of 164 prime negotiators from different construction projects was conducted. A stepwise multiple regression was employed to test the impact of each dimension of justice, and then a moderated multiple regression model was used to test the moderating effect of contract completeness.

The results indicated that, while distributive justice is related to cooperative behaviours, the impact of procedural justice and interactional justice also have great impact, and even more significantly related to cooperative behaviours. Moreover, while contractual obligatoriness positively moderates the relationship between procedural justice and cooperative behaviours, the term specificity negatively moderates the relationship between procedural and interactional justice and cooperative behaviours.

First, the authors aimed to test the effect of justice on cooperative behaviours in construction dispute negotiations originally, but did not determine whether their relationship is mediated by any other factors. Second, contractual governance was chosen as the moderator; other factors may also influence behaviours in project dispute negotiations.

First, project dispute negotiators should not focus their attention solely on the distribution of the negotiation issues. For a cooperative approach, negotiators should also give strong consideration to whether their offers reflect procedural justice and whether their opponents are being treated fairly. Second, while contractual design may affect the frame surrounding the negotiations to help negotiators achieve an integrated outcome, they should give more attention to certain forms of justice.

In contrast to previous studies, the authors defined all three forms of justice in project dispute negotiations, and by adding all three forms of justice into the model, the authors attempted to investigate whether distributive, procedural and interactional justice were all related to cooperative behaviours in project dispute negotiations and to ascertain the extent to which each form of justice is important. Furthermore, the authors explored variations in the importance of each form of justice in negotiations under different contractual conditions.