Interweaving Trust and Communication with Project Performance
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 139, Issue 8
Abstract
Project performance is always one of the key concerns of construction project managers. It is often regarded as the critical indicator to measure the success of construction organization. This paper further advances existing knowledge on the achievement of project performance by investigating its relationship with trust and communication. Specifically, the mediating role of communication is studied to detect any direct and/or indirect effect of communication on this relationship. An analytical approach of mediation analysis was performed to achieve this objective. Five significant mediation models were identified. These models demonstrate that trust affects communication and in so doing influences project performance. Specifically, effective information flow is the versatile mediator to the trust-project performance relationships among all of these significant models. This implies that the improvement of information flow would likely improve project performance (i.e., achieve satisfactory and worthwhile quality, maximize project time, cost, and quality). In this context, the findings point to the need for managers to direct efforts or resources to effectively manage information flow as part of the project management system. This paper contributes to research in communication in construction with respect to articulating its mediator role in the trust-performance relationship. The linking of communication with trust and performance extends the study of communication beyond the conventional premises of pattern and means.
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Acknowledgments
The writers are grateful for the constructive comments from the editor and reviewers. The work described in this paper was entirely supported by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Research Grant Council General Research Fund (Project No. 111709).
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Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 139 • Issue 8 • August 2013
Pages: 941 - 950
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© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 11, 2012
Accepted: Jan 23, 2013
Published online: Jan 25, 2013
Discussion open until: Jun 25, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2013
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