The latest issue (Volume 177, Issue 2) of the ICE’s Management, Procurement, and Law is a collection of three articles and one briefing note. The three articles show the best thinking on procurement (public-private partnerships [PPP]), management (design for manufacture and assembly [DfMA]), and law (alternative dispute resolution [ADR]). These articles align with the targets of sustainable development goals nine (industry, innovation, and infrastructure) [SDG 9] and 17 (partnerships for the goals [SDG 17]).
The first article is a briefing note by Agapiou (2024), which is about dispute resolution. The note reiterates the role of technology and construction court in ADRs. ADR is preferred when litigation costs may exceed the amount in dispute. In my candid opinion, when trust and the ethos of partnership are appropriately situated in the culture and structure of a procurement method, disputes and opportunistic behaviours will not derail a project.
In the second article, Wang et al. (2024) highlighted the criticality of trust relationships in construction procurement. In a construction procurement strategy such as a PPP model, multiple stakeholders must always be managed to realize the deliverables. Wang et al. (2024) thus explored the network structure of trust relationships in PPP projects using social network theory (SNT), often used in stakeholder management research. The study revealed the link between trust networks, opportunistic behaviour, and project performance. The originality of the article can be discerned from the observation that the stability of trust networks was negatively correlated to opportunistic behaviour. The centrality of trust networks was also negatively correlated to project performance. On the flip side, the stability of trust networks was positively correlated to project performance, while its centralization was correlated to opportunistic behaviour. To practitioners and scholars alike, applying these results goes beyond the PPP procurement strategy since multiple stakeholders deliver construction projects.
In the third article, Weththasinghe and Wong (2024) addresses partnership models for leveraging DfMA in the design and delivery of school buildings. The article presents case-based studies that reveal effective partnership models for using DfMA on school building projects. The authors indicated that the partnership models would guide how to establish relationships (trusting relationships in my opinion) to optimise the potentials of DfMA in practice.
The last article in the issue focuses on construction law. Relying on lessons from the United Kingdom (UK), Qadir et al. (2024) highlight the potential for construction statutory adjudication in Pakistan. With data from Pakistan and the UK, the article shows that statutory adjudication would benefit the construction industry in a developing country. The article reinforces the idea that payment issues often lead to disputes in construction in developing economies.
The articles in Volume 177 Issue 2 of MPL urge the readers to address the cooperation problem in construction. Several studies have highlighted contractual arrangements, transaction cost, opportunistic behaviour and the virtues of partnering to inspire project stakeholders to act and behave in a manner that benefits joint action and purpose in the interest of a project (Soderland, 2011). The collection elevates the significance of partnership (SDG 17) and extends the call to deal with cooperation problems. These articles are published Ahead of Print on the ICE Virtual Library homepage. As a CIB-encouraged journal, Ahead of Print MPL articles highlight the latest ideas and best practices for moving the architecture, construction, and engineering sector forward.
The editorial board of MPL appreciates the continued support of the journal.
