PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Thesis Keith Gale 2013namely a detailed examination of projects at tender stage using tender values. Thisreflects the single most important decision of financial commitment during aproject’s life span by a client, as significant costs are committed once a tender hasbeen accepted. As substantial access has been granted regarding financialinformation for projects contained within this case study, an opportunity is taken tocollate data from costs that are normally difficult to obtain due to confidentiality andvarying/different standards of record keeping (Chang and Ive, 2001).Economic theory discussed in chapter three recognised actions of a perfect market inconstruction tendering, with operation of framework agreements as a potential barrierto operation of this mechanism. Such theoretical discussions have not escaped theattention of practitioners (Morgan, 2009). In order to explore financial performanceof framework projects with those engaged through traditional discrete methods, threedistinct areas of cost research are chosen for examination. Clients incur costs ofprocurement, tendering, engagement and supervision in addition to those arisingfrom payments made to a supplier through the construction contract. Analyses ofprojects contained within this case study provide three defined areas with which todissect distinct cost information:• Engagement transaction costs. These include the cost of production offeasibility and conceptual designs, detailed design and the production oftender documents.• Performance monitoring transaction costs. These reflect resources used tosupervise and manage the construction phase of a project including thoserequired to collate performance measurement data.• Construction project production costs. These are costs of engagement ofthe construction work supply chain and for this research specifically refer toaccepted tender values. Concentration upon tender rather than final accountvalue allows a purity of cost data to be captured under similar tenderconditions enabling comparable benchmarks between the two procurementsystems.Statistical analysis between discrete and framework projects is explored through useof independent t-tests with results subjected to Levene’s test to measure magnitude168