Management Review

›› 2017, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (5): 131-142.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Employer's Risk Allocation and Contractor's Behavior in Project Organization: Parallel Mediating Effect of Contractor's Feeling Trusted and Contractor's Trust

Wang Xueqing1, Xu Shusheng1, Xu Zhichao2   

  1. 1. Department of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072;
    2. Tianjin Rail Transit, Tianjin 300392
  • Received:2017-01-23 Online:2017-05-28 Published:2017-05-26

PDF (PC)

698

Abstract:

Persistent improvement of project performance not only requires the contractor to complete the in-role behavior, but also requires the employer to stimulate the contractor's extra-role behavior. However, in reality, the incentives based on risk allocation focus on economic incentives, but neglect the needs of contractors as social beings, which hinder the incentive role of risk allocation. Based on self-fulfilling prophecy theory and social exchange theory, the study introduces the contractor's feeling trusted and the contractor's trust, in order to explore the mechanism of how the employer's risk allocation motivates the contractor. Empirical test results based on an analysis of 149 valid questionnaires show that:First, there is a positive correlation between the employer's risk allocation and the contractor's in-role and extra-role behavior. Second, the contractor's feeling trusted plays a partial mediating role between employer's risk allocation and contractor's behavior. Third, the employer's risk allocation is weakly related to contractor's trust, but contributes to generate contractor's in-role and extra-role behavior. In theory, this study further deepens the understanding of incentive for contractor in the project organization. In practice, the findings provide theoretical guidance and management implication for improving the effectiveness of incentives on the contractor.

Key words: project organization, employer's risk allocation, contractor's behavior, contractor's feeling trusted, contractor's trust