Using a proper control system is vital to ensure that project delivery is satisfactory for the client. Prior research has identified relationship history as a potentially vital contingency factor in organizational control, but there is a lack of research on how relationship history affects how different control systems function in project-based contexts. In the Swedish infrastructure market, increased demand has resulted in a need for increased supply capacity. This has spurred new entrants that have no relationship history with the major client, the Swedish Transport Administration. The purpose is therefore to compare how the client’s control systems function in construction projects with familiar (known to the client) and unfamiliar (new to the client) contractors. The case study involves 32 interviews conducted in six infrastructure projects, three with unfamiliar contractors. Findings show that relationship history heavily influences how the control systems function, especially bureaucratic and clan control. The new contractors are unaccustomed with the client’s extensive use of bureaucratic control and perceive it as less suitable in design-build contracts. Furthermore, the lack of relationship history reduces the opportunity to use clan control from the beginning of a project, due to unfamiliarity with both the client and the control system.

Purpose - This paper aims to identify how a public client’s use of control systems (process, output and social control) affect innovation possibilities in construction projects.

Design/methodology/approach - Semi-structured interviews about six infrastructure projects were conducted to identify respondents’ views on innovation possibilities. These possibilities were then analyzed from an organizational control perspective within principal–agent relationships between the Swedish Transport Administration (STA) and their contractors.

Findings - How the client uses control systems affects innovation possibilities. Relying on process control could negatively affect innovation opportunities, whereas output control could have a positive influence. In addition, social control seems to have a weak effect, as the STA appears not to use social control to facilitate joint innovation. Public clients must comply with the Public Procurement Act and, therefore, retain the requirements specified in the tendering documents. Much of the steering of the execution is connected to the ex ante phase (before signing the contract), which affects innovation possibilities in the design and execution phases for the contractor.

Research limitations/implications

This study was conducted with only one client, thus limiting its generalizability. However, the findings provide an important stepping stone to further investigation into balancing control systems and creating innovation possibilities in a principal–agent relationship.

Originality/value - Although public procurement has increasingly been emphasized as a major potential source of innovation, studying how a public client’s use of organizational control systems affects innovation possibilities in the construction sector has received scant attention.

Within the infrastructure sector, a public client can have various roles and responsibilities that extend beyond its own organization, such as stimulating and supporting innovation. As an infrastructure project is seldom standardized, the client needs to procure each contract based on the relevant uncertainties and complexities for that specific context. To encourage a contractor’s compliance with the client’so bjectives, the client employs some degree of organizational control. When a public client procures all its infrastructure from contractors, it also needs to find ways of eliciting innovative solutions from the suppliers. Therefore, a public client needs strategies to both promote innovation by the contractors and direct and oversee the contractors’ work to ensure the deliverables meet the project’s objectives. The demands for increased innovation in the construction sector in general needs to be handled concomitant with the client’s need to check that the contractor delivers accordingly to the client’s objectives and demands. The overall purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationship between organizational control and promoting innovation by a public infrastructure client. More specifically, it explores how a public client can promote innovation by its contractors from an organizational control perspective. The theoretical background is provided by an organizational control framework (Ouchi, 1979; Aulakh et al., 1996), i.e. a client can manage and steer an agent via three different control systems: process, output, and social. The empirical data is derived from 47 semi-structured interviews, complemented by observations, from10 different infrastructure projects. The client (The Swedish Transport Administration; STA) is the same for each project, but the contractors differ. Two types of contractor are represented: contractors that have not worked with the STA before (“unfamiliar contractors”), and contractors that have worked with the STA before (“familiar contractors”). A majority of the contract type is design-build. Four appended papers, each presenting a public client perspective, provide the basis of the thesis. Previous findings that the client’s role is important for promoting innovation is explored further in this thesis from an organizational control perspective, emphasizing the role of the public client. It is important that during the procurement phase the client tries to find the right balance between achieving the intended objectives and creating space for innovation. Ex-ante planning is important, because how the client writes the control mechanisms into the procurement documents, and later the contract, has a direct effect on the opportunities for innovation by the contractors.In addition, the client has to manage the project in a way that does not cause irritation of frustration for the contractor, or hinder their work, thus supporting the view that organizational control should be enabling instead of coercive, so that the client’s input encourages innovation rather than creating obstacles. In addition, when adding a relationship history perspective on organizational control, an unfamiliar contractor (i.e. a contractor that has not worked with the client before) can find process control unsuitable and social control confusing, which means output control is probably the most appropriate approach to take when working with unfamiliar contractors. However, just relying on procurement strategies such as a design-build (DB)contract in combination with strict functional demands is not enough to promote innovation. Furthermore, a collaborative setting only seems to lead to innovative solutions if the client regards innovation as a mutual task and utilizes the collaborative setting for innovative co-creation. From the client’s perspective, the practical and managerial implication of this thesisis the importance of finding a balance between giving the contractor space to be innovative in the execution of the contract, and at the same time making sure that the requisite end product is delivered. The results of this thesis suggest that the client does not hand over the “how” to the contractor when it comes to executing the project, as would be expected in a DB contract. From the contractor’s perspective, the responsibility for innovation within a DB contract can be confounded by the client’s use of social control, by which the client may encourage discussions and collaboration regarding innovative solutions but blur the line over responsibilities. This could explain why social control often fails to have a positive impact on innovative output.

Innovation is often seen as essential for long-term development in the construction industry, but its actual outcomes and processes in construction projects require more attention. Many studies on procurement strategies and delivery systems have focussed on the public transport infrastructure sector, whereas most construction innovation scholars have addressed the innovation phenomenon in construction generally. Thus, the purpose of this study is to compare how two delivery systems, design-build (DB) and design-build-maintenance (DBM), influence project-level innovation. Findings are based on empirical data from a multiple case study of six infrastructure projects, three with DB contracts and three with DBM contracts, in which 12 innovations are identified, described, and compared. The findings show that various kinds of innovations in terms of outcomes and processes are implemented in infrastructure projects, and that the delivery system do effect both dimensions. Long maintenance responsibilities tend to spur contractors to engage in early exploration of sustainable solutions that could be of long-term benefit. The research contributes to procurement literature by exemplifying how delivery systems influence both the outcomes and processes of project-level innovations. It also increases our knowledge about construction innovation as a multi-dimensional phenomenon.

Communication is dynamic, social, challenging, and a key quality factor for construction projects. This is especially the case in multinational and inter-organizational infrastructure projects where factors like culture and language differ among the involved actors. As infrastructure projects usually extend over longer periods of time, collaborative relationships need to be established in which the actors can develop, for example, mutual understanding, learning, and efficient working routines. By building on empirical data from contemporary infrastructure projects, we explore how international contractors and a large public client communicate in multinational infrastructure projects (i.e., what the challenges are and what competences are needed). The analysis is based on the linguistic framework of communicative competence, and we contribute to the development of collaborative models in construction project management by suggesting the concept of contextual communicative competence

Strategy implementation for driving innovation and change within the infrastructure sector is important because the path from making a decision to change to actually reaching the intended vision is complex. A client needs to find strategies for how to stimulate innovation when the client has to go via the contractor during the execution of a project. The contractors are therefore important in achieving the intention of increasing the innovation rate in the sector in general. A client interested in enabling innovation must find and utilise strategies within the relationship with their contractors. That a client should stimulate innovation has been established in earlier research; however, how this could be done is less studied.

The client in this study, the Swedish Transport Administration, has decided upon two strategies to increase the innovation rate: a change to procuring design-build (DB) contracts instead of design-bid-build (DBB) contracts, and increasing the number of foreign contractors in the Swedish infrastructure sector. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the implementation of these two strategies — DB contracts and working with foreign contractors — with a focus on the perceived challenges for both client and contractors.

The method used has been a multi-case study with 40 semi-structured interviews with project managers, procurement officers, project directors, site controllers, site managers, and project engineers in eight different cases. The empirical data are all from Swedish infrastructure projects with a duration of 1 to 10 years. Some of the cases have been multicultural and multilingual.

 The findings of this study are that, firstly, the client seems not to have made the transition entirely to the DB contract setting, resulting in a mix between the two contract types. This results in confusion for both the domestic and foreign contractors. The domestic contractors in general have not fully adapted to the new contract type where they are to take more responsibility, and the foreign contractors are more used to the DB contract and therefore feel confused by the client not utilising it as intended. Secondly, the strategy of increasing the number of foreign contractors has been fruitful. There are a number of foreign contractors that have both submitted tenders to the Swedish Transport Administration, and established themselves in Sweden. There are, however, five different categories of perceived challenges that have been identified. These categories are economic, political, procurement-related, social, and project-related challenges for foreign contractors after entering in the Swedish infrastructure sector.

The contributions of this thesis are that the client’s role in strategy implementation should be further explored, and that perceived challenges should warrant attention. This thesis focuses on two strategies on how the path towards innovation could look, from both client and contractor perspective, resulting in a theoretical contribution to the client-driven innovation literature, as well as construction management literature. By being aware of the challenges and that changing the project delivery system is more than changing the name of the contract, a client could ease a contractor’s situation and therefore enable them to focus on innovation and improvements.

Purpose–For a number of years, the construction industry has seen an ongoing shift from design-bid-buildto design-build contracts. This transition in contract type entails changes for both the organizations and theindividuals involved. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how the client manages thetransition between the different contract types from an organizational change perspective in a project-ledorganization.

Design/Methodology/Approach–A multiple case study of six infrastructure projects with DBcontracts, all managed by the Swedish Transport Administration, was conducted. The major source of data issemi-structured interviews with respondents from both the client and the contractors.

Findings–Results suggest that the transition has resulted in a mix of design-bid-build and design-build ascontract type owing to issues when changing in a project-led organization. A change in vision also requires aconcomitant change in culture, systems and roles.

Research Limitations/Implications–The study only includes cases from the Swedish transportinfrastructure sector, which limits the generalizability. Thefindings are also indicative owing to the smallnumber of cases.

Practical Implications–Thefindings further our understanding of managing change in complexprojects, which might help practitioners to manage change in a more integrated way.

Originality/Value–Thefindings enrich our understanding of the systemic change that a switch incontract types can have in inter-organizational complex projects such as transport infrastructure projects.Furthermore, it emphasizes the intricate task of change management in project-led organizations and itseffects on roles and responsibilities.