Collusion between supervision unit and contractor in construction project based on evolutionary game theory

Abstract

The behavioral strategy option of project-based organizations directly influences the quality of construction project. Based on the behavioral game model for the owner, supervision unit and contractor, and analysis of mixed strategy Nash equilibrium for the model, under the analysis framework that project-based organizations’ bounded rationality, this paper treats the supervision unit and contractor as a benefit community, the benefits matrix was constructed for the owner and community, and analyzed the interaction mechanism and stable state between them with evolutionary game theory. The results shows that, in the evolutionary game system constituted with the owner and community, the stable state of construction project agent collusion is related to certain critical factors including the benefit and loss for collusion behavior, the supervision cost for the owner, the punishment rate from the owner and etc., and affected by the strategy option of counter-player and original state of the game system. Finally, several measures for prevent agents’ collusion are proposed.