Construction project dispute negotiation: a conflict-trust mapping framework

Trust between negotiating parties has been identified to have a positive impact in achieving negotiated settlements. This study aims to test this proposition in the context of construction project dispute. To achieve this, bases of trust and conflict types are identified through literature review on the respective subjects. As a result, three trust bases: cognition, behaviour and affect are listed. Two major conflict types; C-type and A-type conflicts are translated into five construction project dispute scenarios. With these, five conflict-trust relationship frameworks are developed. With data collected from Hong Kong construction professionals, these frameworks are confirmed by structural equation modelling (SEM). Data sufficiency for SEM is augmented by bootstrapping analysis. Affect-based trust is found to be the most versatile while cognition-based trust is the least instrumental. Despite construction project disputes are content specific, the human aspect during negotiation cannot be under-estimated. It is also found that robust contract governance puts parties on a legality-trusting platform. The main message from this study is that negotiated settlements are more likely if the negotiating parties can establish common ground through effective information exchange - a situation where trust would prove to be instrumental.