Evalua???? ng the relevance of NEC3 contracts on the collabora???? on between stakeholders in the Dutch building industry

The  development  and  planning  of  complex  sustainable  building  projects  and  the  implementation is a multiscale task and especially because of the participation of multiple stakeholders  across  multiple  disciplines  (Thabrew  &  Ries,  2009).  The  uncertain  nature  of  complex building projects require an effective risk and stakeholder management approach to align conflicting stakeholder interests (Mok, Qiping, & Yang, 2014).
A practical tool to manage these large construction projects could be the New Engineering Contract 3 (NEC3). This collaboration is a family of contracts, which offers a complete end‐to‐end project management for the entire project life‐cycle; from planning, all risks defining legal relations of the stakeholders and the procurement of work (NEC3 contracts, 2014).

The  thesis  consists  of  a  literature  review  on  NEC3,  risk  management  (RM)  &  stakeholder  management (SM) and a research model that analyses the perceived success factors of NEC3 according to Dutch building experts. The review discusses the importance of the management of stakeholder interaction in complex construction projects with a focus on trust (supported by a trust maturity model), soundness, performance of a team and risk management with the focus on common used risk management tools in the building industry and planning & control. The  innovative  management  concepts  of  the  NEC3  will  be  elaborated  to  understand  the  possible contribution of this contract to the Netherlands. The research model analyses the risk and stakeholder management tools of the contract.

While clients want to make the best decision in selecting the most suitable contractor and subcontractors for the project, a clear understanding of the underlying clauses associated with the project’s contract in the context of achieving successful project outcomes is critical (Doloi, 2011, p. 687). To understand the clauses in the NEC3 contract and the links to the five concepts extracted from the literature review Trust, Soundness of Business, Planning & Control, Quality Performance  and  Project  Success,  a  structural  model  is  created.  The  research  model  uses  Structural Equation Modelling because this method’s interest usually focuses on factors as abstract psychological variables like trust and is able to test different hypotheses about the five important aspects of this research and tries to understand the links of these aspects with different  clauses  in  the  NEC3  contract.  This  thesis  collected  data  across  construction  companies in the Netherlands and the structural model confirmed that the innovative concepts  in  the  NEC3  contract  are  highly  evaluated  by  the  experts.  However,  the  relation  between the Planning & Control and the Overall Success of a NEC3 project was not acknowledged.  The  understanding  of  the  significance  of  the  clauses  in  the  context  of  the  success of NEC3 according to Dutch experts contributes to enhancing the knowledge and the notoriety of the contract: understanding the added value and the contribution of NEC3 in the field of risk & stakeholder management when looking at the overall project success