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Developing a Trust Inventory for Construction Contracting

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Abstract

Trust is central to every transaction that demands contributions from the parties involved. A trusting contracting environment facilitates problem solving, thus reduces happening of dispute. In construction, trust has been identified to be the key driver in fostering cooperation. Moreover, how to measure trust is inherently difficult. By operationalising a trust framework that includes system-based, cognition-based and affect-based trust, a trust inventory is proposed. The reliability and stability of the inventory were then validated through the test-retest methodology. The proposed trust inventory can be used to assess trust pattern akin to the assessment of conflict handling style and the measurement of depression through the use of the Rahim’s Organisational Conflict Inventory and the Inventory of Measuring Depression respectively. Supporting view on the appropriateness of the trust framework and the potential uses of the trust inventory were confirmed with two senior construction professionals.

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The content of this chapter has been published in Volume 29(2) of the International Journal of Project Management and is used with the permission of Elsevier.

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Correspondence to Sai On Cheung .

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Cheung, S.O., Wong, W.K., Yiu, T.W., Pang, H.Y. (2014). Developing a Trust Inventory for Construction Contracting. In: Cheung, S. (eds) Construction Dispute Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04429-3_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04429-3_9

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