| Summary: | The identification of factors that affect the performance of temporary multi disciplinary organisational teams has been a central aim of management research in the construction industry for over 40 years. This study contributes to what is known about the formation of a construction project organisation by identifying the contingent factors that affect contractor's gathering and analysis of price information from supply chain organisations during the ex ante processes to contract formation. The research methodology adopted a combined approach to data collection and analysis, and used a theoretical framework adapted from transaction economics to identify and explicate a model of contingency factors. The research method for data collection in the dominant quantitative first phase used a postal survey of 760 estimators working for contracting organisations in the United Kingdom in December 2003. The resultant data set was analysed using descriptive statistics. A multi variable general linear model and principal component analysis defined the parameters of a model that informed the second phase of data collection and analysis. This model was explicated using a multiple case study approach that gathered and analysed interview data from estimators working for organisations that had been purposively selected. The findings of this research identified the contingency factors that affect contractors', seeking, gathering, analysing and synthesising of supply chain price data, that can be grouped into four categories, which are; external environment, project environment, task environment and inter-organisational relations. The research also found that the existence and strength of effect of the contingency factors was differentiated by organisational size, and identified the factors that may be influenced by the intervention of the client procurement system, (or the organisation) in the ex ante process of supply chain organisation team development.
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