The effect of trust on the accuracy of design development information flows in UK construction new procurement systems: A social network analysis

As a result of innovations in procurement strategies, construction project coalitions are moving away from their arm’s length, adversarial and competitive nature, into long term, integrated inter-firm relationships. More collaborative approaches such as the use of supply chain management and work or technology clusters have become contemporary themes in the industry where a coalition of firms enter into long term partnering relationships to undertake projects (Pryke, 2004). Latham (1994) recommended that traditional adversarial relationships in UK construction, involving high levels of transaction costs, be replaced with those built upon trust. Trust influences the effectiveness of knowledge and information exchange between project coalition members as it facilitates the exchange of resources and information that are crucial for high levels of project performance but which are difficult to transfer via market ties (Uzzi, 1996). This ongoing research project investigates the UK construction industry’s new procurement systems in an attempt to study the relationship between trust and the accuracy of design development information flows in construction project networks, and how this may impact upon project performance. The research paper will argue that a positive correlation exists between the level of trust and the accuracy of design development information flows in the project network, proposing that trusted relationships are more accurate (Golbeck, 2005). It will also argue that this relationship is influenced by a number of network characteristics including tie strength, path length and actor centrality. Considering tie strength, the research paper argues a positive correlation between the strength of the tie and the accuracy of the information flow, mediated by the level of the tie’s trust. Moreover, because trust is not perfectly transitive (Guha & Kumar, 2004), the paper argues that trust decreases along a chain of connections, thus suggesting a negative correlation between path length and the level of trust and consequently the accuracy of information exchange. Regarding centrality, the research paper argues that the greater the centrality of an actor, the greater their influence on the formation and maintenance of trusting relationships and the greater their impact on the flow of information.