Antecedents of “power” and “dependence” in the context of collaborations in construction projects: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify the antecedents of “power” and “dependence” attributes in the context of a construction project and to explore the impact of the antecedents on risk transfer and collaboration to develop a conceptual framework for decision-making. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review was performed using various databases to identify the antecedents and their measures. This review followed the established preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses protocols and 246 articles were identified. The articles were qualitatively analysed based on keyword co-occurrence approach using VOSviewer software. Findings The findings of this systematic review established latent constructs, that is, “clarity of procurement decisions”, “market structure” and “market competition” as antecedents of power and two antecedents of dependence, namely, “reputation” and “commercial importance”. And a framework was conceptualized to determine the contractual approach and the procurement design should be planned to take in account the scenarios and the course of action to enhance collaboration and control risk transfer. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first of its kind to identify the “antecedents” of the attributes of “power” and dependence and framework was conceptualized to determine the contractual approach.