Future Research


As identified previously, when discussing the limitations of the OCWS process approach, future research in this area should focus on the perceptions of contractor organizations with regard to owner-contractor work relationships. A separate research investigation at CCIS is currently targeting this topic. Most capital projects involve multiple contractors with different and possibly conflicting motivations. Although the OCWS process was conceived as an owner-driven process, complete validation of the process would require that the contractors' perceptions be fully addressed. Aligning owners' and contractors' perceptions, with regard to the approach for developing better work relationships, should, therefore, be the focus of future research in this area.

Measuring the effectiveness of the OCWS process is another area of future research. Establishing a correlation between the use of the OCWS process and capital project outcomes would provide a measure of what the owners and contractors stand to gain from using the OCWS process. In order to accomplish this objective, it would be necessary to identify measurable characteristics of owner-contractor work relationships as well as capital project outcomes. The OCWS framework provides such characteristics of the owner-contractor work relationships in the form of the five relationship types namely OP, OP/CI, OL/CP, CP/OI, and CP. Capital project outcomes can be characterized by four widely used measures in the industry; safety, cost, schedule, and operational performance. Benchmarking projects from an owner-contractor work relationship perspective would provide valuable insights into how these relationships evolve over time and the influence they have on capital project effectiveness. Relationship measures and capital project effectiveness are currently under investigation in two ongoing investigations at CCIS.

Another area of study should be focused on demographic changes within the industry. This is currently being investigated through a human resource survey and United States Census data evaluation at CCIS. Significant changes in the demographic makeup of the industry will drive changes in the OCWS framework.

A final area of future research would involve an assessment of the relationship between the general contractor and subcontractors. Although the OCWS framework can be theoretically extended to this relationship, the effectiveness and validity of that approach must be assessed before using it for that purpose.




The Frontiers of Project Management Research
The Frontiers of Project Management Research
ISBN: 1880410745
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 207

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