| Abstract | The construction industry is complex, diverse, and fragmented. Some countries believe it is necessary to establish a statutory board to manage the development of their construction industries. However, establishing such statutory body is expensive and demands qualified and experienced staff. Countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries that have not established such bodies, need to study the existing bodies in other countries before making the decision on establishing one for their construction industries. The key success of the body depends on the support of its constituents/members. As in organizations, trust and commitment from all parties are needed in order to establish a cohesive working team to achieve organizational goals. The importance of the relationship between an institution and its constituents is therefore examined. The relational exchange concept, which is based on exchange activity and mutual gratifications between two patties, was used in this research. Gaining mutually rewarding of relationship for both parties (government organization and its constituents), can lead to improvement in the constituents part and sustainability in the part of the government organization. Such an important relationship is shown by establishing a model of exchange relationship's three key important constructs (satisfaction, trust, and commitment) which is adopted from the Customer Relationship Marketing/Management (CRM) concept. These three key constructs have been viewed as essential ingredients for successful long-term relationship in private sector CRM. From the general system theory, institution building, legitimacy, and relational exchange theory, it is concluded that there are four focal constructs that cause the constituents of an institution to remain loyal to or to leave the organization. Institution actors, contact persons, core service, and shared values are then proposed as the antecedents that have positive relationships with the relational exchange constructs. Subsequently, remaining with the organization is translated into three positive constituents' future behavior intentions: retention, participation, and coproduction as the variables for the outcome constructs which are also hypothesized to have positive relationships with the relational exchange constructs (satisfaction, trust, and commitment). A model has been proposed by inserting the relational exchange constructs into the relationship between the facets of organization (as the antecedents: institution actors, contact persons, core services, and shared values) and the future behavioral intention (as the outcome construct). The relational exchange constructs are the mediator constructs in the model. To test this hypothesis, a rival model was established by eliminating the relational exchange constructs from the mediator role and locating them as exogenous variables. Then, a 7-point Likert scale questionnaire has been designed based on the institution building principle and trust-commitment theory. It was then, distributed to the construction companies registered with Building and Construction Authority (BCA) in Singapore which is considered as the most efficient construction industry statutory body in the ASEAN region.
Two pilot tests were done to improve the questionnaire. The finalized questionnaire was distributed to all grades A and B registered companies (218 companies with the BCA in Singapore). Although 48 (22.02%) of them replied, only 36 (16.5%) responses with valid questionnaires were used in this research. Most of the acceptable completed questionnaires are from companies with general contractor type of organization and respondents were in middle and top management levels of their companies. The structural equation modeling technique was chosen in this research since it has a unique characteristic in causal modeling. It grows out of and serves purposes similar to multiple regression, but it is a more powerful technique which takes into account the modeling of interactions, nonlinearities, c01Telated independents, measurement error, correlated error terms, multiple latent independents each measured by multiple indicators, and one or more latent dependents also each with multiple indicators. LISREL 8.50 was used to test this structural equation model using the data collected from the construction companies in Singapore. The model was then compared with a rival model that did not have satisfaction, trust, and commitment as mediating variables. The result shows that 13 of 50 (26.00%) observed variables representing the four antecedents constructs, 8 of 11 (72.73%) observed variables of three mediating constructs, and 4 (100%) observed variables of three outcome constructs were accepted in the final model. With the 'middling' fit of the final model, it supports 8 of 9 (88.89%) main hypotheses of the study, including 10 of23 (43.48%) hypothesized paths of the model. Meanwhile, only 3 of 21 (14.29%) hypothesized paths are supported by the rival model. Therefore, the three key mediating constructs are concluded to be the key factors explaining the future behavior of the constituents towards their organization. Moreover, there appeared three significant paths with significant indirect influence on the outcome constructs. This represents the strongest demonstration for a mediator effect in this research. Besides the statistical analysis, email interviews were done to confirm the result that trust is the focal construct in the relationship between BCA and the registered construction companies. It is concluded that relational exchange also plays an important role in the relationship between the statutory body and its constituents. This role is not limited to consumer products, business to business partnerships, human resources development, and intra-firm relationships. It also supports the theory that trust has an important role in public administration and it influences institutional accomplishment. Understanding the impact of the mediating variables on outcome behaviors is not only valuable for retaining the constituents, but it can also drive them to be more participative in organizational programs which lead to the survival of the institution. |