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The Efficacy of Trust-Building Tactics in Construction Dispute Mediation

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Construction Dispute Research

Abstract

Distrust hinders disputing parties and mediators from achieving mediation success. Mediators therefore often use trust-building tactics to generate some degree of trust in themselves and in the mediation process. This chapter reports a study that identified the trust-building tactics used by construction mediators and examined the efficacy of these tactics with respect to their outcomes. Three study stages were designed. With reference to the mediation model of Sloan (1998), trust-building tactics and outcomes were first identified in Stage I. Next, the data were collected from accredited mediators with a questionnaire survey in Stage II. The collected data were then validated via reliability assessments in Stage III. With the use of multiple regression analyses, the efficacy of the trust-building tactics was examined by relating these tactics to their outcomes. The findings of this study suggest that the trust-building tactics used in Step 4 (i.e., explore interests) of Sloan's mediation model (1998) are influential in developing trust among disputing parties and that they can also act as a time-saving tool in the mediation process. Furthermore, it was found that mediators can earn trust by adopting the trust-building tactics used in Step 3 (i.e., issues and trust) of Sloan’s model (1998). These tactics can also serve to improve the relationships between the disputing parties. The results show that the trust-building tactics used in the final step (i.e., solutions) of Sloan’s model (1998) seem to have low efficacy in developing trust among disputing parties.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Wai Ying Lai for collecting data for the study. The content of this chapter has been published in Volume 135(8) of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management is used with the permission from ASCE.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Tak Wing Yiu

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  1. Tak Wing Yiu
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Correspondence to Tak Wing Yiu .

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  1. Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Sai On Cheung

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Yiu, T.W. (2014). The Efficacy of Trust-Building Tactics in Construction Dispute Mediation. In: Cheung, S. (eds) Construction Dispute Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04429-3_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04429-3_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-04428-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-04429-3

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