How can trust facilitate the implementation of Early Contractor Involvement (ECI)?

A successful partnering should begin early, prior to contract award or the procurement selection process in order to deliver the best value to a project. The benefit will be maximised if during the planning and design stages, the construction knowledge is introduced. Early contractor Involvement (ECI), a form of relationship-based delivery system fosters the involvement of contractor in the preliminary stage of a contract and allows the contractor to contribute its construction knowledge to planning and design. A trust-based relationship between owner and contractor is also realised as the foundation for achieving successful partnering. Factors affecting the degree of trust include intention, ability, competence and motive. The more one party believes that another party will fulfil the commitments to the relationship, the more that party will trust the other one. Although there is wealth of literature about ECI and its benefits for all project participants, few paid attention to the impact of trust development between parties on implementing an ECI contract. This paper therefore aims to investigate how trust can improve the innovation and encourage the contractor to share his construction knowledge in the early stage of project based on contextualisation and review of existing literature. The conclusion drawn is that since trust is one of the significant factors in facilitating knowledge sharing and increasing innovation, it should not be treated as a shot in the dark proposition and similar to other aspects of the project, a successfully developed trust-based relationship can be the result of proper management of the entire trust building process.