Analysing the drivers for early contractor involvement adoption by construction clients

The use of a relationship-based procurement method is promoted by many authors in the past few years. The construction industry is encouraged to adopt a relational contract in an effort to overcome its perceived problems prevailing in the industry. Despite a number of benefits proposed for the adoption of a relationship-based delivery method, the decision to select such a method should be made wisely, and clients should have adequate understanding about the strength and weakness of the method they intend to employ. There are several examples that incorrect selection of a procurement method resulted into value not delivered during the project and the outcomes were below of what it would have achieved by using a traditional type of delivery system. For this reason, this paper focuses on ECI procurement system as one of the relationship-based procurement methods. This paper aims at identifying and analysing the particular characteristics of ECI that attract clients to opt for using this method and analysing these drivers in more detail.