Forced Business Relationships and Evolving Roles in Construction Projects

QC 20260223

Abstract

Construction projects are characterised by fragmented responsibilities, temporary relationships, and recurring coordination challenges that hinder productivity and limit opportunities for improvement. In recent years, construction logistics setups (CLSs) operated by third-party logistics (TPL) providers have been introduced as an organisational response to these challenges, offering potential improvements in logistics efficiency, predictability, and sustainability. As these setups become more common, particularly in dense urban environments, they introduce a new actor into the organisation of construction production. When the use of a CLS is mandated by clients or municipalities, contractors and suppliers are required to cooperate with the third-party logistics provider regardless of their own preferences. These externally imposed arrangements create forced business relationships that influence how coordination is organised, how interactions unfold, and how responsibilities and roles evolve over time. They also intersect with competitive conditions between contractors, adding an additional layer of complexity to coordination. Despite the growing use of TPL-operated CLSs, their implications for coordination and interorganisational relationships remain insufficiently understood.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to advance understanding of how third-party logistics providers, as a new type of actor managing logistics during production in construction projects, assume and enact roles that engage with and affect interorganisational relationships. The thesis comprises four appended papers, which together address the purpose through complementary empirical and analytical perspectives.

To address this purpose, the thesis draws on perspectives from supply chain management, the industrial network approach, and coopetition. These perspectives support an analysis of how coordination is formed through both formal arrangements and everyday interaction, how new actors become embedded and legitimate within existing networks, and how cooperation and competition coexist in relationships shaped by external mandates. The empirical foundation consists of two in-depth case studies of TPL-operated CLSs. One case concerns the refurbishment project of the university hospital in Linköping, and the other a stage with multiple housing developments in the urban development district “Stockholm Royal Seaport". Interviews, observations, and documentary material were used to analyse how roles, interactions, and tensions in the relationships between different actors developed over time.

The findings show that TPL providers influence coordination through responsibilities that extend beyond logistical tasks. Their involvement affects how activities are connected, how interdependencies are managed, and how the interactions between contractors are structured. Their roles change in response to expectations, formal mandates, and the practical challenges of coordinating contractors with differing priorities and working practices. In contexts where cooperation is externally imposed, their roles can shift between being perceived as supportive and necessary or intrusive. Their ability to build legitimacy, demonstrate competence, and adapt to contractors' practices is central, since coordination in construction is shaped more by ongoing interaction, negotiation, and adjustment than by formal control. Forced cooperation introduces both constraints and opportunities that influence how actors cooperate, interpret mandates, and stabilise working relationships over time.

Overall, the thesis contributes to the understanding of how new actors participate in the organisation of construction production under conditions of an external mandate. It shows that coordination develops through incremental and context-specific adaptations rather than through a complete integration of the supply network. It extends the industrial network approach by showing how actors position themselves and develop influence in loosely coupled networks through repeated interaction. It also enriches coopetition research by showing how cooperative and competitive dynamics shift within forced business relationships mediated by an intermediary. The thesis concludes by identifying implications for the governance of CLSs and by suggesting directions for future research on coordination, role development, and interorganisational dynamics in project-based contexts.

Link to DiVA