The Effects of Relational and Social Behaviors Exhibited by Construction Project Team Members on Relationship Quality and Project Outcomes

Abstract

Relational and social behaviors of construction project team members explain team relationships. Whereas relational behaviors have often been studied in construction project team relationships, the current literature is deficient on the social behaviors. The literature review revealed seven relational behaviors (i.e., harmonization of conflict, propriety of means, restraint of power, reliance and expectation, contractual solidarity, flexibility, and reciprocity) and three social behaviors (i.e., past experience, benevolence, and integrity) commonly exhibited by construction project team members. Through a binomial logistic regression, research findings revealed that past experience was a significant (p < 0.01) predictor for five of the seven relational behaviors while benevolence and integrity were each significant (p < 0.01) predictors for three of the seven relational behaviors. Overall, out of the seven relational behaviors, only propriety of means is predicted by all the three social behaviors. Through multinomial regression, the results indicated that there is not enough evidence to show a relationship between the dimensions of relationship quality and project outcomes. However, there is a relationship between relationship embeddedness and project outcomes. Through internal and external validation, the prediction models performed well based on both positive predictive values and negative predictive values. From a relationship management standpoint, this research introduces relational and social behaviors of team members as triggers of relationship embeddedness, and the potential influence on relationship quality and project outcomes. The results contribute to understanding the effect of social behaviors on the relational behaviors found in construction project teams where eleven statistically significant models that predict relational behaviors using the social behaviors were validated. The implication of this is that construction industry practitioners’ efforts to create a more relational team can use these prediction models in predicting the relational aspects of the team.