Key Relationships in Project Delivery System and Their Effect on Project Performance

Abstract:

The extent to which project delivery system (PDS) is adaptable to the internal and external conditions is related to project performance. This paper, based on comprehensive literature review and project case analysis, reveals the RPP (relationship between key factors in PDS and project condition), analyzes how these RPPs function to influence project performance, and then builds up the relationship model to describe the functioning mechanism of RPPs on project performance. To test the model quantitatively, this paper employs Spearman correlation to analyze data collected from 30 public construction project cases in China invested by the World Bank Group. The result suggests that in these projects, consultant companies contribute mainly to risk control through their participation in the project evaluation stage and in this way improve the overall project performance, and the more suitable the RPPs are, the better the project performance will be. In light of this, this paper puts forward suggestions and principles on project delivery selection which may act as a guidance to project delivery selection practice.

Key words:project delivery system; relationship between PDS and project condition (RPP); functioning mechanism