Relational factors in owner-contractor collaboration: The mediating role of teamworking

We hypothesized that teamworking quality, defined as an inter-team collaborative process, is the mediator that links the efficacy of three antecedents-relational attitudes (relational norms and senior management commitment), collaborative practices (team integration and joint working procedures), and teams' joint capability (the project team's overall competence and experience)-in improving project performance (efficiency, effectiveness, perceived satisfaction, perceived success). Using a sample of 113 capital projects, we applied partial least squares structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. The results confirm that the three antecedents indirectly influence project performance through teamworking quality. There is no empirical evidence that these antecedents directly influence project performance: relational attitudes, teams' joint capability, and collaboration practices do not automatically lead to a successful collaboration without day-to-day managerial intervention in teamworking processes. We also found that the parties' expectations regarding continuing relationships, as a consequence of good project performance, are directly affected by relational attitudes.