Contractual incentives between the main contractor and third parties for better performance in a Bouwteam

Abstract

In the last decade, the Bouwteam concept has become increasingly popular in the construction industry. A Bouwteam agreement is a bilateral agreement between a client and a main contractor, in which the main contractor is involved at an early stage. An advantage of a Bouwteam collaboration is that risks which occur in the construction phase are mitigated in the design phase. In practice, both the client and the main contractor can employ third parties to transfer parts of their design responsibilities. In the recent Bouwteam models, there is the possibility that a substantial part of the design responsibility is passed on to the main contractor and his third parties. These third parties have an increasing influence on the achievement of project goals, which are usually the design quality, design costs, design planning and client satisfaction. Hence, this research is focused on the implementation of contractual incentives for the designing third parties, who are employed by the main contractor in a Bouwteam. The contractual incentives are used to influence the performance of these third parties, in such a way that Bouwteam goals are achieved.