Uncertainty and Participant's Relationship Quality: Moderating Roles of Contractual Flexibility

摘要

In construction projects, the relationship quality often appears to decline due to uncertainty, then contractual flexibility is introduced as an effective tool to cope with uncertainty. However, there is a controversy viewpoint about the effectiveness of contractual flexibility, and how contractual flexibility governance the uncertainty has not been explored. This research aims to examine the effects of uncertainty on relationship quality and the moderating effects of contractual flexibility. The empirical results from a sample of 225 exchanges in China demonstrate that both environment and behavior uncertainty have a negative effect on relationship quality. In addition, contractual flexibility could moderate the negative effect of environment and behavior uncertainty on relationship quality, specifically, the degree of contractual flexibility should base on the degree of environment uncertainty. These findings offer new insights in contractual flexibility and offer important implications for introducing flexibility into contracting in construction projects.