A Bibliometric Analysis of Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) Research in the Construction Industry

The construction industry needs more contributions from experienced contractors for the design to improve time, quality and cost aspects later in the construction process. Early contractor involvement (ECI) has been introduced as an alternative delivery process to include the contractor’s contribution to the design phase. Despite scant research, the decision-makers’ prejudices have influenced the choice of ECI for a project. This study systematically analyses literature to examine global development, knowledge structure and research gaps in the ECI to get a holistic view of different ECI models and their applications. The Scopus database was searched for keywords such as “ECI”, “early contractor” and “construction” related to ECI. A bibliometric analysis approach was used to analyze the final set of 85 related journals selected from 165 papers before the screening. VOS viewer software was applied to illustrate keyword co-occurrence. The study identified ECI model variants around the world. However, only about 20% of models were used in building projects and the rest were applied in civil projects. The findings benefit construction professionals in figuring out the behavior of the ECI and its application.