Developing a trust inventory for construction contracting Sai On Cheung * , Wei Kei Wong, Tak Wing Yiu, Hoi Yan Pang Construction Dispute Resolution Research Unit, Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Received 3 June 2009; received in revised form 5 February 2010; accepted 11 February 2010 Abstract Trust is central to every transaction that demands contributions from the parties involved. In construction, trust has been identified to be the key driver in fostering cooperation. By operationalizing a trust framework that includes system-based, cognition-based and affect-based trust, a trust inventory is proposed. The reliability and stability of the inventory were then validated through the test–retest methodology. The proposed trust inventory can be used to assess trust pattern akin to the assessment of conflict handling style and the measurement of depression through the use of the Rahim’s Organizational Conflict Inventory and the Inventory of Measuring Depres- sion respectively. Supporting view on the appropriateness of the trust framework and the potential uses of the trust inventory were obtained from a confirmatory qualitative study with two senior construction professionals. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Trust inventory; Construction contracting 1. Introduction Trust is central to every transaction that demands con- tributions from the parties involved (Williamson, 1975, 1981, 1993; Lewicki and Bunker, 1995, 1996). The 2008 financial turmoil resulting from the credit crunch that has troubled the global financial markets is an illustrative example of how the absence of trust paralyzed the banking credit system. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, wrote in The Times on 10th October 2008 “ ... Until only a few weeks ago, few, if any, appreciated the real significance of the money markets within the wider global financial crisis and the importance of trust in these markets. But the freezing of the market for medium-term funding reflects a total loss of trust between banks. ... This paralysis of lending from loss of confidence jeopardizes the flow of money to every family and every business in the country”. Analogously, if parties in the construction supply chain do not trust each other, their skepticism may not completely paralyze the operation but will certainly create unnecessary enquiries and checking procedures, resulting in serious bottlenecks and inefficiency (Latham, 1994). Changes are common during the construction phase of a project. In a distrusting environment, developers always assess the submission of the contractor with respect to change orders with an opportunistic lens. Likewise, con- tractors often inflate their submission in anticipation of hostile and skeptical evaluation. This scenario is extremely common in construction with a dispute being the ultimate outcome. Trust is a fundamental ingredient or lubricant of social interaction (Gambetta, 1988) and its positive impact on communication (Giffin, 1967), leadership (Atwater, 1988), management (Scott, 1980), negotiation (Bazerman, 1994), game theory (Milgrom and Roberts, 1992), performance (Cummings, 1983), labor relations (Taylor, 1989), self- managed work teams (Lawler, 1992), construction project management (Wood and McDermott, 1999; Kadefors, 2004; Wong and Cheung, 2004, 2005; Wong et al., 2006; Wong et al., 2003, 2008) and owner/contractor relation- ships (Pinto et al., 2009), has been well documented. 0263-7863/$36.00 Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2010.02.007 * Corresponding author. Address: Department of Building and Con- struction, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong. Tel.: +852 2788 7603; fax: +852 2788 7612. E-mail address: bcsoc@cityu.edu.hk (S.O. Cheung). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com International Journal of Project Management 29 (2011) 184–196 www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman