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

Thesis Keith Gale 2013the action research tender, the project was completed to allocated time and withinbudget despite minor additional works being requested by the client.8.17 Summary of analysis of production costsPublished evidence of the effect upon increases in tender costs through collaborativepractices has not been determined through empirical evidence (Hughes, et al, 2006)although the Government Construction Strategy (Cabinet Office, 2011) warns ofrestrictions to competition through a ‘locked out’ market. Application of perfectmarket theory determines that lowest price can only be achieved through opencompetition. Hypothesis H3 follows this perfect market theory proposition and byextension would therefore expected results from t-test analysis to indicate asignificant difference in variance between pre-tender and tender values betweenframework agreements and discrete projects. The proposition, anticipates thatframework agreements would display a wide variance against pre-tender estimates(higher values) than those for discrete projects.Two independent measures of variance are used to quantify value of tenders for thediscrete and framework projects selected from the case study. Measure onecalculated the magnitude of the differences in the means between pre-tender estimateand tender as small (0.022). This indicates that there is no discernable differencebetween tender pricing levels for discrete and framework projects.Measure two calculated the magnitude of the differences in the means betweenlowest tender price and accepted price as small (0.031). This indicates that there is nodiscernable difference between the lowest price and an occasional higher priceaccepted by the client due to operation of performance incentives. A deduction fromthe data indicates that operation of incentive mechanisms has not affected acceptedtender price levels.Confirmation of the conclusion of no overall financial variance is provided throughtriangulation by another method. Action research was conducted by placing aselected project to a wider list of suppliers than those contained in the frameworks.As a practical element involving live projects this method included a significant riskto the client if the tender strategy did not work. A potential effect could have delayedthe project with significant consequences to the organisation and its stakeholders!191