Control influence on trust and relational governance in the client-contractor dyad

The construction industry has in recent years witnessed a paradigm shift towards the use of more collaborative contracting relationships and integrated processes in an attempt to improve construction project delivery. Trust is central to the success of these contracting approaches and although efforts are usually aimed at improving trust relations in client-contractor relationships, there has so far been mixed findings on how trust is influenced by formal control mechanisms discharged via formal contracts. In construction contracting, there is therefore the need to investigate how different governance modes and control mechanisms deployed on construction projects are perceived by those being controlled and how this in turn influences trust. Through a critique of the extant literature on trust and control in construction, this study reveals that the trust-control relationship which can be both complimentary and supplementary has far reaching implications on the measurement/assessment of trust in the construction project context. The orientation of governance and control mechanisms selected by clients and the behavioural consequences of these from contractors can thus be used as a measure of the degree of trust that exists in the dyad.