Governing Contractor Greenwashing Behaviors in Construction Projects: The Heterogeneous and Interactive Roles of Contractual Governance and Trust
Publication: Construction Research Congress 2022
ABSTRACT
In recent years, the environmental issues that arise at the construction stage of projects have raised great concern. Despite good efforts, one of the major challenges for environmental sustainability of construction projects is how to govern the contractor greenwashing behaviors (GWBs), which are termed as the combinations of poor environmental performance along with positive environmental communications. Contractor GWBs pose a greater challenge for environmental governance in construction projects and are urgent to govern. Although previous research has underlined the mitigation mechanisms of GWBs from the external institutional perspective, the internal governance mechanisms toward project settings are ignored. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the heterogeneous and interactive roles of two common project governance mechanisms: formal contracts and trust in the context of temporary organizations (i.e., construction projects). This study contributes to gaining an understanding of GWBs and environmental sustainability in project settings, providing practical guidance for project practitioners.
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Published online: Mar 7, 2022
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