Exploring factors affecting owners’ trust of contractors in construction projects: a case of China

BACKGROUND: It has been found that a low level of trust among members of a construction project team leads to poor performance in China. Many researchers have described the challenges, consequently advocating partnering as an attractive approach for more valuable cooperation. Because substantial investments have been poured into construction projects since the year 2000, trust research will improve the performance of construction projects and will be meaningful to the Chinese construction industry. PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attributes affecting owners’ trust of contractors, to understand the potential properties of these factors, and to rank the factors in order of importance. RESULTS: Twenty-four attributes are identified from a literature review. Supported by qualitative reviews, a questionnaire is conducted to obtain relevant data, and 168 valid responses are obtained for data analysis. Principal component analysis (PCA) is employed to find the factor structure of the identified trust attributes. By the method of PCA, the attributes are extracted into eight factors, including interaction history, information sharing and communication, contract and institution, relation-specific investment, reputation, integrity, competence, and opportunistic behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: The value and originality of this paper are embodied in using PCA to understand the various attribute groupings and to illuminate trust impact factors in the Chinese context. When they understand the critical factors affecting trust better, owners and contractors can devise more appropriate strategies to improve performance. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40064-016-3393-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.