An Investigation of the Influence of Public Clients on Contractors’ Behaviour towards the Modern Methods of Construction

Recently, the Modern Methods of Construction (MMC) are gaining ground due to the support of both the private and governmental sectors. However, the scale of the uptake among more traditional contractors is still weak. On the other hand, public clients have a track record in motivating the traditional sector to adopt innovation towards meeting their specific needs. This paper aims to investigate the gaps within the public sector and their ability to accelerate innovation. The study will review existing literature relevant to understand the required relation and influence. The central hypothesis of this research is that public client's engagement in procuring MMC projects would trigger and accelerate traditional contractors' organizational transformation to adopt such methods. Hence, this study aims to understand the complex dynamics of the involvement of public clients on possibly motivating traditional contractors towards offering innovative solutions. The findings of this research would support the effective intervention for more effective diffusion of MMC and add to the knowledge of facilitating a greater adoption of innovation within the UK public bodies. The main objectives of this research are to a) Understand the relation between public clients and contractors, b)Examine the influence exerted by public clients on contractors' behaviour, and c) Investigate theability of public procurement frameworks to act as integrators towards increasing the adoption ofinnovation. The findings highlight a gap within existing literature represented by the limited studiesaddressing contractors' behaviour in the public client context, particularly in MMC, and moreunderstanding of public clients' decision making processes are needed to enable researchers andpractitioners to have better understanding on contracts' behaviour towards the adoption ofinnovation's body of research.