Grey Interest Chain Identification and Control Model for Government Investment Engineering Projects Based on Node Identification

In the bidding process of government investment engineering projects, collusion between the government and bidders occurs repeatedly, which seriously affects the quality of engineering projects and the effectiveness of the government investment. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze and discuss the collusion between the government and bidders in government investment engineering projects, so as to provide a healthy and sustainable environment for the government investment engineering bidding market. There are two main types of collusion in engineering bidding: horizontal collusion and vertical collusion, and this paper focuses on the vertical collusion process in the engineering bidding process. A conceptual framework of the grey interest chain based on three stages of benefit creation, benefit distribution, and benefit realization was established, 15 major nodes in the grey interest chain were identified, and a grey interest chain control model was constructed, which further identified and classified the nodes into four levels: key nodes, important nodes, general nodes, and unimportant nodes. Finally, through the application of the model in the case, measures such as establishing a cracking mechanism for grey resource integration, increasing the supervision of grey interest chain, and strengthening post-bid audit are proposed. Measures such as including the preparation of bidding documents into the work assessment system and entrusting consulting units or third parties to prepare bidding documents are proposed to establish a crack mechanism for grey resource integration. In the benefit distribution stage, the penalties for the government and the bidders can be appropriately increased, the responsibilities of enterprises and project leaders can be implemented in the system on a reciprocal basis, and a perfect reputation mechanism information can be established. At the stage of benefit realization, the bidding system should be improved and post-bid audit should be strengthened to increase the difficulty of grey benefit realization. This paper will provide a reference for the prevention and governance of vertical collusion in bidding and tendering.