Contract types in the Swedish construction sector: Overview and theoretical analysis

Efficiency problems in the construction sector are reported worldwide, both when it comes to delays as well as cost overruns and failure in the construction. In Sweden, investigations of the building sector have been done and improvement measures have been suggested to increase quality and keep the costs down particularly in a life- cycle perspective. One suggested measure is to procure more contracts that provide incentives for contractors to work more cost efficient, stick to schedule and improve quality, e.g. performance contract and private public partnership (PPP). In many countries, e.g. the UK, Australia and New Zeeland, PPP is a concept well used to build public facilities. Just a handful of projects in Sweden have been PPP projects or other type of contracts where building, operation and maintenance are procured as one, such as performance contract. Compared to other countries this is a small amount of all projects in the construction sector. The debate in Sweden seems, in one way, not to be one about “be or not to be” but rather a discussion about the meaning of the contracts and concepts, where an infinite number of definitions are used, instead of the actual utility of the working strategy. To contribute to a better understanding, a literature review in the field has been done to structure and categorize these more or less new contracts in the Swedish construction sector but also the relationship between performance contract, PPP and other more traditional contracts is clarified.