Bridging Perspectives: a Thematic Analysis of Trust in Construction Management

With the increased interest in collaborative project delivery, a focus on behavioral elements is needed to increase the effectiveness and success of delivered projects. Trust, in particular, plays a critical role in promoting team cooperation, building a relational culture, mitigating risks, minimizing conflicts, and realizing the full benefits of lean principles. However, despite the frequent mention of trust in construction management literature, research on trust, and the wider topic of soft elements, is lacking and the construction industry remains in much need of trust-related research. Starting from the basics, there is no universally accepted definition of trust and the definitions used in construction are borrowed from other fields, such as sociology, psychology, and economics, which are not all applicable to construction. Therefore, this paper aims to bridge perspectives and propose a definition of trust that is accepted and understood by construction management practitioners and researchers. For that, the authors perform a thematic analysis of 45 definitions of trust from the literature and present a thematic map outlining the interrelationships of the different elements of trust and a suggested definition. This contribution correlates trust in construction to risk in project management and will be built on in the authors’ future research.