Stakeholder Conflicts in the Construction Industry: A Systematic Review of Three Decades

Construction projects are prone to conflicts and disputes due to differing stakeholder interests, which can adversely affect their successful completion in terms of time, cost, and quality. Thus, implementing effective conflict management methods is essential to reduce negative outcomes and capitalize on the positive outcomes of conflicts. However, there is still limited understanding of the status and trends of stakeholder conflicts, and critical conflict causes and management strategies identified by previous studies. Thus, a systematic literature review was conducted, complemented by a scientometric analysis using the VOSviewer bibliographic tool and Pareto analysis to systematically identify critical factors within literature. A total of 63 studies published between 1993 and 2025 were analyzed. Findings indicate that most recent studies have focused more on human, contractual, and technological aspects of conflict. Overall, this study identified 46 conflict causes and 58 management strategies, which were categorized into different groups based on their characteristics. Among these, 23 and 31 were identified as most critical causes and management strategies based on Pareto analysis, with most factors linked to stakeholder relationships. The study offers a systematic understanding of the status quo and emerging themes in stakeholder conflicts research in construction industry. The findings of this study will be beneficial for researchers in identifying future research directions and project stakeholders to understand the most common conflicts and effective management methods for handling conflicts in construction projects.