A structured literature review on construction conflict prevention and resolution: A modified approach for engineering

Infrastructure construction requires a variety of abilities and competencies. In this highly competitive setting, disputes can arise for numerous reasons, such as the magnitude or complications of work, deprivation of coordination among the contracted parties due to improperly prepared or implemented documents, insufficient planning, financial constraints, and differences in resolving on-site related complications (Bröchner et al. 2002). Since construction conflicts significantly impact cost and time, contractors and owners should promote effective conflict management in their union (Ren and Anumba 2003). It has been noted that the dynamic nature of the construction contracts determines the tactics in standard conflicts (Mohamed et al. 2014). The aforementioned factors can disrupt a project and lead to complex arbitration or litigation, increased costs, and a collapse in the relationships and communication among parties. Therefore, the effective delivery of a project necessitates the full cooperation of all parties involved, so that time, resources, budgets, and objectives of a project can be met.

The goal of this systematic literature review that focused on contemporary construction conflict prevention and resolution was to identify an effective methodology that can manage difficult conflicts in construction projects and that can address the shortcomings of current approaches. Since it is essential to consider the dispute resolution process as a whole and discuss the processes in which multiple methods effectively combine into a single approach, different dispute resolution choices available to the construction industry were compared in this study. Methodologies for preventing and resolving disputes in the construction industry identified in seven highly renowned studies are shown in Table 1.

Disputes and disagreements in construction can be avoided if the risks and duties of the parties are openly defined in explicit terms (Table 1). Identifying the reasons leading to conflicts in construction and establishing preventative steps is essential to decrease the probability of such disputes (Boateng et al. 2015). For example, Fenn and Gameson (1992) stated that improvements in the training and education of construction workers prevent conflicts. Effective and affordable conflict management enhances the productivity and durability of this cooperation while also assisting in overcoming obstacles (Leung et al. 2002).

Referencing the terms and conditions of an agreement between parties can identify problem areas that require attention, minimizing disputes. This indicates that within the construction project, conflicts arise because all players are not in equal contact. To some extent, the causes of conflicts are known to those involved in construction projects. Yet, it is not easy to overcome them unless there is a transparent process to control obstacles ahead of the actual project. Therefore, a systematic taxonomy of the cause of disputes is needed (Elziny et al. 2016).

If the persons governing the contract possess an understanding of various issues that may be concealed by a contractor during construction, then avoidance of disputes is possible (Jagannathan and Delhi 2020). The reasons for disputes do not need a legal explanation before being resolved (Essex 1996). There is no clear-cut dispute prevention strategy that can be given for each dispute in a construction project. Conflicts differ and seldom qualify for the dispute prevention or resolution mechanism facilitated in the contract. Negotiations in construction contracts are usually inefficient obligations to the range of scholarly backgrounds of the negotiating alliance. Negotiations involve multiple variables, complex connections and must deal with scarce information of the negotiating project participants (Apt and Witzel 2009).

The primary causes of disputes in a construction project are uncertainties in contracts and unreasonable distribution of risks between participants of the project (Alaloul et al. 2019). Goodman (2012) stated that such disputes can be reduced if the risks and tasks of the parties are rigorously outlined in clear terms to avoid any misconception. Disputes can be avoided by investing in the education of administrators of a construction contract (Adnan et al. 2012). Moreover, a thorough understanding of the written agreement enables the development of a harmonious relationship between the contractor, the owner, and other participants of the construction project, including others such as related consultants, subcontractors, and insurance financiers (Lee et al. 2016). These stakeholders should accept possible solutions or choices that might not be mentioned in the construction contract, such as using a reservation of rights or mitigation agreement, which allows them to approve a temporary resolution without preconception and accede to resolve the dispute later. Due to the improbability of the claim and its significance (Brower 2005), stakeholders in a construction project may desire to consider the usage of a reservation of rights or mitigation agreement for disputes that do not qualify for resolution at the initial stage. This study aimed to understand the strategies of construction dispute prevention and other mechanisms of resolving existing disputes.

Possessing correct personality traits that can be applied to a suitable phase of negotiating dispute resolution at the initial stages is ideal (Hemanth et al. 2019). One such trait is the skill for conducting effective negotiations, which needs effective conveying power. As previously indicated (Sternberg and Lubart 1991), issues and conflicts at different levels of the construction industry are a result of misapprehension.

Studies on conflict resolution mostly focus on the management of disputes instead of evasion, either specifically by supporting the adoption of organization systems and techniques or implicitly by referring to approaches that might be used as a construction conflict management strategy. In addition to some changes in technical substance in education and coaching for construction, personnel is also considered important (Fenn and Gameson 1992). A general summary of various studies on conflicts, disputes, and their prevention and resolution is presented in Table 2.

Different types of conflicts should be considered before developing strategies to resolve them. As such, there is a relationship between the associated conflicts that occur due to social mismatches among the many participants, methodologies-related conflicts that arise due to the approach to the construction projects, and distribution of means and task/project-related conflicts that occur due to disagreements among different members concerning tasks to be performed (Gorse 2003).

Disputes consume time, are costly and unpleasant (Ren and Anumba 2003), destroy relationships between owner and contractor that have been carefully built up over a long period of time, and significantly increase the price of a project, often making it ineffective or unachievable, or nullifying any edges. Disputes should be prevented, and if they do occur, they must be resolved as early as possible to save the relationships and control construction costs (Jergeas and Hartman 1994). Grasping the details of a particular task in construction projects helps avoid disputes (Khatiri et al. 2004). Conflicts throughout the project lifespan should be fixed initially, without external interference, and many disputes are handled by internal negotiations. Failure of negotiations implies that construction contracts provide several choices to the parties.

The nature of conflicts is always different, with multinational construction contracts being more complex than local contracts (Akintoye et al. 2015). The former is difficult to resolve because they are based on foreign laws. However, the management of construction projects is governed by domestic laws rather than international laws. Many disputes arose in the 1960s, 1970s, and mid-1980s that involved separating the comparative positions of contractors and owners. The latter did not agree to accept the possibility of other site conditions, which were unfamiliar to both parties at the time of the contract (Brower 2005). Therefore, completing construction tasks requires a project team participant's effort toward a mutual objective (Boateng et al. 2015).

Compared to similar contracts, construction conflicts are not as frequently resolved (Bröchner et al. 2002), because of the long-term nature of projects that bear significant risks of additional conflicts and disputes. Systematic assessments of high-impact studies that can be applied in the case of construction conflicts, their resolution, and prevention should generally have the following elements (Gorse 2003):

Establish the extent of development in current research toward revealing a specific issue.

Since a systematic review is analytical in its claim and nature, it can handle broader queries than single empirical studies (Leary 1997), which is reflected in the permissibility of alternative analysis styles at the highest of the hierarchy of evidence when systematically reviewing construction conflict prevention and resolution.

A theoretical framework that incorporates suitable conflict prevention and resolution strategies for the most common and frequently occurring conflicts in construction projects is currently lacking. Recently, a comprehensive review of literature on construction project risk analysis showed that the literature lacks a comprehensive risk assessment framework that accounts for different types of impact of the risk on different project objectives simultaneously. With this in mind, a new tool was developed to aid systematic literature review that was fine-tuned for the field of engineering. A properly structured literature review promotes the development of constructive conflict management strategies (Gehrmann and Gunnarsson 2019) and is necessary to improve our understanding of construction conflicts by connecting research in theory and providing strategies to avoid in practice, thereby creating development policies that lead to the implementation of previous analyses of construction conflicts.

The present study examined whether there is research literature support for avoidance, management, and resolution of disputes by establishing less-conflictual attitudes and whether a dispute evasion strategy will resolve dispute-causing differences between stakeholders of construction projects through multiple identified approaches.

Studies published between January 2000 and July 2020 and housed in three internationally accessible electronic databases were searched to identify contemporary studies in preventing and resolving conflicts in construction and infrastructure projects. The study period restriction was applied in the beginning and modified according to the need of the study. Three databases – Scopus, American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE), and ScienceDirect – were chosen for their reliability and relevance to the study area, construction conflict prevention, and resolution.

A hierarchical search strategy was used wherein publications from Scandinavia were ranked first, followed by research case studies from Europe, the US, and the rest of the world. Prior to deciding the combination of search terms used across all three databases, several were tested as search strings (Table 3). Several factors affected the shortlisting and selection of articles, of which relevance was the most important, followed by duplication or repetition, geographical factors, and environment of the contract culture. The iterative development of the search string noticed repetition while using 11 expressions. Among the geographical factors, the priority given to Scandinavia can be justified, because in Norway, the culture is more Western European, which in many cases can be compared to other Northern or Western European cultures. Publications on conflicts in Asia, North America, Africa, and Latin America were included to cover various construction cultures.

Of the three databases, the hits obtained from Scopus when the search was restricted to engineering and engineering management publications were highly relevant to achieving the goals of this study. The ASCE database includes the Journal of Infrastructure Systems, which is highly relevant to this study, its scope being limited to roads and tunnels. The search hits yielded articles and references that mainly dealt with infrastructure conflicts and disputes. Articles included in error at the early stages of the search is often inevitable due to the vast number and mixture of references in the databases used, especially by the Science Direct database, which includes multiple sciences, and therefore, corrections were made. Initial data were retrieved from January 2000 and July 2020, but for including pioneering results, such as R, J, Essex, an article about disputes in construction projects published prior to 2000, relevant and innovative results, and a wider search was conducted.

A reiterative search process was adopted wherein some articles and references were disapproved, and another search process was conducted to ensure the quality and relevance of the hits. A comprehensive search process to ascertain the quality and relevance within the document was conducted for every shortlisted article and reference. For clarity, relevance, and significance, specific articles were included, and on the contrary, despite the Norwegian University of Science and Technology having one of the most generous access policies, in some cases, articles, book chapters, or the entire book was inaccessible and therefore excluded.

The iterative improvement of the search string in three databases from 2000 to 2020 with the search expression in bold and digits in parentheses indicating the coverage of relevant publications is shown in Table 3.

Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) is used to report systematic reviews in health research. The process involves imposing the work of two researchers on the same topic with a third referee to resolve conflicts. Since PRISMA may not work as effectively in engineering as it does in medicine, a new approach termed “Modified Reporting Items for Structured reviews in Engineering and Technology” or MORISE (Figure 2) was developed in this study to address the limitations and challenges of systematic reviews in the engineering sector. PRISMA comprises identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion, while in MORISE, the process comprises designation (10 years, timespan) (title, abstract, and keywords), refining (title, abstracts, and keywords), qualification (content), adaptation (content), and addition (title, abstract, keywords and content; no time limit). More explanations about the MORISE method will follow in the coming sections.

Three well-known databases – ASCE, Scopus, and ScienceDirect – were identified for the purpose of this research, which focused primarily on recently published studies. A total of 61 publications were shortlisted, as shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1

For the first time, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic review of the literature using a new approach specific for engineering, MORISE, was developed in this study. According to MORISE, studies were first separated by titles, then by abstract, and lastly by complete text to progressively eliminate studies not meeting the inclusion criteria. There were 502 hits, of which 447 records were refined by titles, finally yielding 138 studies after 309 records were excluded based on reading the abstracts. The full-length manuscripts of these 138 studies were read to determine if they met the inclusion criteria and evaluate quality. Finally, 40 articles were identified and endorsed. MORISE entailed removing any time limitation and examining full-length articles and records in the last step before the final adaptation was made. Following a widening of the time span, an additional 21 studies were included, yielding a total of 61 publications that were identified for this systematic review. The results of the literature review study from designation to endorsement are shown in Figure 2.

Fig. 2

Within the last decade, the focus has been on reducing construction disputes, with conflicts being the leading source. This manuscript aimed to use a systematic review of the literature to discuss construction disputes such as policies and mechanisms by focusing on strategies and methodologies that eliminate construction conflicts.

Disputes are a matter of fact in practice and can occur in any construction project. Indeed, effective and reasonable disagreement enhances the productivity and creative thinking of the team members, which avoids obstacles (Liu et al. 2019). Therefore, the contract manager must build a relationship between contention and the satisfaction level. There is no single and precise way to deal with conflicts. Sometimes minor problems grow into serious disputes, with unpleasant results for project participants (Boateng et al. 2015). Disputes and conflicts in contracts distract valuable resources and delay construction projects that should be finished on schedule and within a financial plan while maintaining standards, often increasing the budget, taking time to resolve, and often destroying relationships built over the years (Leung et al. 2002). The emphasis, therefore, is on the need to avoid disputes. Since dispute prevention is a comprehensive process, a better understanding of how conflicts can be prevented is achieved by separating the systematic literature related to the prevention and resolution of construction conflicts, despite many researchers combining the two for ease of studying.

Historically, most disputes in construction projects had risen when subsurface situations were incongruent from those specified in the contract or probably by the parties (Gardiner and Simmons 1992). In terms of frequency of reasons cited as causes for disputes, payment regimes and delays rank first, followed by written agreement interpretation and changes in projects (Essex 1996). Categorizing the reasons helps recognize the depth of the matter and offers an appropriate solution, thereby minimizing the time needed for an answer and reducing the burden on the judicatory. A dispute prevention system prevents construction project claims from turning into disputes. Conflict prevention methodology is adopted before the occurrence of a dispute once it is enclosed within the contract.

The economic success of a construction project is achieved when stakeholders make an effort to anticipate, persevere, and discuss the construction claims or disputes (Cserháti and Szabó 2014). To realize this inexpensively, the contractor should attend pre-contract meetings and highlight issues, prepare a sensible program, make a thorough assessment of the project, send questionnaires for clarification within the tender document, and ensure the completion date is observed among all identified practices through surveys for the tender (Hwang and Low 2012). Kanishka et al. (2019) noted that conflicts arise at pre-stages and should be resolved at the pre-contract stage to avoid subsequent issues. A perusal of pre-contract is therefore recommended to eliminate conflicts in construction plans (Goodman 2012).

There are many ways to prevent conflicts, among which goal setting is one of the main tools to stop negative conflicts. An overview of research on conflict prevention in construction projects is provided in Table 4. Table 4 shows 17 articles identified in this systematic review that were shortlisted further from the original 61 articles that were endorsed in this study. These 17 articles are considered because they gather significant contributions to the theme of prevention of disputes in construction projects and summarize almost what already exists in the other 61 articles chosen earlier. Table 4 includes methodologies adopted and contributions to the theme of prevention of conflicts. Various research methodologies used to prevent conflicts in construction projects point to complex associations between the possibilities that become the reason for conflict and various conflict types.

The methodologies adopted by various authors in resolving conflicts are described in Table 5. Occasionally, construction contract participants have legitimate disputes, and various strategies for dispute resolution are utilized. However, there is no best method for resolving disputes that is appropriate for all circumstances. Nevertheless, owners and contractors should have an understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of every technique and confirm that the contract contains sections devoted to acceptable approaches to the resolution of disputes, which include negotiation, arbitration, facilitation, and DRBs (Safapour and Kermanshachi 2019). Negotiations can be simplified, wherein construction project managers will provide results of the negotiation once attitudes are taken into consideration or planned, which improves typical negotiations by proposing higher negotiation outcomes. While the latter is an approach to resolve a dispute, it is not the only one, and in the event of an unsatisfactory resolution, there is a choice for subsequent proceedings. Arbitration is quickly gaining acceptance. Written agreements on dispute resolution methodology are useful in resolving construction conflict until the conflict does not arise (Wesam et al. 2019). It might not be the most effective; therefore, elasticity is truly needed (Li and Cheung 2020).

This study is not without limitations. Only a few methodologies and strategies to prevent and resolve conflicts were reviewed. Identifying similar theoretical backgrounds to integrate the same design for a systematic review of the literature using MORISE.

Based on examination of the 17 articles studied as part of this research, it is clear that conflict management is essential. The researchers highlighted the unique features of conflicts and explained the role of stakeholders’ participation. There was also a discussion of various conflict case studies, as well as successful conflict management techniques that consider organizational structure. To conclude, Table 6 examines the most effective methods and procedures and their contribution toward preventing and resolving conflicts in large construction projects.

The findings revealed specific program disputes, and their causes and effects were disclosed. Moreover, conflict resolution principles and alternative dispute settlement techniques for the construction industry were proposed. Disparities in authority and interests among multiple stakeholders may lead to conflict. Due to the high number of parties engaged in construction projects, contract agreements could be poorly documented and/or implemented, or inadequate planning could lead to financial issues. In addition, communication problems could lead to arbitration requests. Poor communication between project stakeholders has been linked to construction conflicts. According to experts’ predictions, efficient conflict resolution in projects will affect project performance, resource management and design optimization, space management, and the project's objectives. Consequently, scholars have begun to pay more attention to conflict management, which is now recognized as a significant issue in the construction industry's administration.

Using MORISE, we were able to make a clear distinction between methodologies adopted by various researchers for the prevention and resolution of conflicts and show that in addition to prevention of conflicts, there are comprehensive and suitable reasons to resolve conflicts, which can be adapted in practice. While it is not possible to rely on a single methodology to resolve construction conflicts, a reorientation of some earlier methodologies and educational programs is needed. To prevent or resolve conflicts, there is a need for a proper understanding of the sensitivity of the problem. Without comprehending the obstacle, it is impossible to propose a reasonable method to overcome it. Therefore, the methodology depends on the tricky nature of the problem.

Healthy relations and trust between the construction owner and the contractor as well as other stakeholders help identify and overcome all obstacles that can occur in any project. All stakeholders should be clear about the project scope and need to create proper contracts and project documentation that are as unambiguous as possible. Conflicts can be reduced by applying negotiation and arbitration provided by a DRB. On the other hand, despite having several forms in Norway and internationally, it can be considered a good start in preventing and resolving construction projects.