Abstract:This paper attempts to develop concepts of project and contract organization to predict the selection of contract type on infrastructure projects. Conventional wisdom is that at low risk fixed price contracts are best, moving to remeasurement and then cost plus as risk increases. We started trying to predict this from a transaction cost perspective, and such an analysis confirmed conventional wisdom. However, it does not fit with current practice. Further, the differences in transaction costs are small compared to differences in contract out-turn cost that occur under the different motivational effects of different contract types. We therefore take a different perspective. We assume the purpose behind a project contract is to create a cooperative project organization, in which all participants, clients and contractors, are motivated to achieve common objectives, their goals are aligned. This analysis confirms modern practice, and shows selection of contract type is related to uncertainty in the project's deliverables, and uncertainty in the process of their delivery. Build only remeasurement contracts are used where uncertainty of both product and process is low. Design and build fixed price contracts are used where uncertainty of the product is low, but the uncertainty in the process of delivery is high. Fixed price contracts should be used where both are high. We extend the analysis to show when the client should be involved in the project organization in an alliance contract, and when they should not, as in a traditional project contract.本文来自辣.文~论^文·网原文请找腾讯324,9114
1. Introduction中药专业学员实习自我鉴定
During 2000, the authors ran a series of courses for the European Construction Institute,including ones on Contracts & Procurement, and Partnering & Alliancing. During these courses we were asked when fixed price, remeasurement or cost plus contracts should be used, and when alliancing contracts (which involve the owner in the project organization) should be used rather than traditional approaches (which do not). In response to the first question, we were only able to give the usual, glib answer that fixed price should be used when the risk is low, and cost plus when it is high. However, we were not able to answer the follow-up question of “Why?” There is recent research which showa when alliancing contracts should be used1. Perceived wisdom is that as risk increases on a project, the appropriate form of contract to govern the relationship between the client and contractor changes from fixed price, to remeasurement and finally to cost plus. But there is no real theory of project or contract organization that says why this should be so. Similarly there is no theory of when to involve the client in the project team and when not.
The authors set out with the intention of taking a transaction cost perspective to show how different contract types, as different governance structures, optimize governance costs associated with the different contract types in different risk scenarios. Turner and Keegan used a transaction cost perspective to analyze governance structures adopted by client and contractor organizations to manage the contractual relationship on projects. Williamson says that choice of appropriate governance structures for a contractual relationship is by definition a transaction cost issue. Thus, we thought it might be possible to bring a transaction cost perspective to bear on the selection of appropriate contracts types, and on whether to involve the owner or not. What this analysis suggested is transaction costs are not dependent on risk per se, but uncertainty in the definition of the project’s product. At low levels of uncertainty, transactions costs associated with fixed price contracts are lowest, at intermediate levels those associated with remeasurement ones are lowest, and at high levels of uncertainty those associated with cost plus one are lowest, confirming perceived wisdom.2411
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