Interdependency in the Relationship of Project Partners: How Can it Work?

Success of a project transaction is uncertain until it is completed. Information on a particular project supplier’s competence profile reduces the buyers’ uncertainty. In the first phase we used expert mini focus groups to explore general views of project buyers and suppliers on project characteristics and their expectations and risk perception throughout the project. In the second phase structured in-depth interviews with project managers were undertaken. In the last step we had taken a larger sample that permitted us to apply multivariate statistical methods. The results of our qualitative research and quantitative analyses revealed that there are areas that both buyers and suppliers pay attention to, which means that these are considered as risk factors by managers. Findings from the qualitative interviews helped us understand the pattern of competences and activities that most likely to have an impact on risk and/or value perception. The quantitative research could also uncover the activities of which impact is resistant to contradiction. As a next step of our study we aim to test the impact of the presence or absence of the most important competences.