Research Trend of Collusion in Top Construction Journals

Abstract

Collusion is a stubborn negative phenomenon in construction industry, calling scholars to conduct continuous research in recent years. In this paper, a comprehensive analysis on 24 collusion publications in eight top construction journals in the duration of 1999–2011 was performed, including Automation in Construction, Building and Environment, Building Research and Information, Construction Management and Economics, Journal in Engineering, Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, International Journal of Project Management, Engineering, Construction, and Architectural Management. Distribution of collusion publications in years and journals was concluded in this paper. It was also found that scholars from Hong Kong, Australia, U. K., and Netherlands had conducted certain research on collusion issue in construction industry, meanwhile scholars from developing countries were also focusing on this topic. Typically, scholars with much contribution on this research topic were listed out with a proper scoring method. Research interests illustrated from these collusion articles were also identified into five categories, which may imply the future research direction on this topic.