Bibliometrics and visualisation of research on trust in construction projects

Abstract

The present study used scientific mapping analysis to describe the overall state of the literature on trust in construction projects (TC) and to gain a deeper understanding of its intellectual structure and research areas of interest. It focuses on 349 articles from 27 journals in the construction-management domain from the past 20 years. The influential journals, scholars and articles in the domain of TC were analysed. A qualitative follow-up discussion targets two main objectives: intellectual structure and research fronts. The TC intellectual structure involves topics such as relationships, project performance, contracts and behaviour, approached by way of multiple disciplinary fields, including ‘transaction, management and accounting’, which are supported primarily by organisational theory, organisational trust theory, trust theory and incomplete contract theory. Multi-case analysis and structural equation models are used widely as research tools. New key TC research areas include varying relationship characteristics, trust evolution, interpersonal trust and new problems in project governance.