Identification and analyses of hidden transaction costs in project dispute resolutions

摘要

The hidden transaction costs in project dispute resolutions exert an important influence on the decisions about dispute settlement. In order to obtain the variables and their importance rankings, we firstly developed a thirteen-variable framework of the hidden transaction costs through a literature review and semi-structured interviews. Then we conducted a questionnaire survey to collect the importance of each variable. Based on the results, it is possible to group these variables into five factors reputation, cooperation and trust, emotion, time, and execution of judgments by factor analysis. Lack of future cooperation and contractors' reputation damage are the two most important variables, while for owners, project delay is the most severe hidden transaction cost. The findings provide construction practitioners with a deep understanding of the potential hidden loss. Therefore, they will resolve disputes more rationally. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. APM and IPMA. All rights reserved.