It is generally accepted that for a project to be regarded as successful it must be completed within budget, on time and show superior quality of design, materials and workmanship. In the light of this, it has been suggested that one of the success factors of a project is how organisations approach problems and conflicts.

The problem is that conflict and dispute are common owing to the complicated nature of the construction industry and the involvement of so many parties along the contractual chain, adversarial relationships, uneven risk allocation and uneven bargaining power. It is therefore suggested that without a proper mechanism for avoiding dispute in the first place, once conflict turns into dispute it could affect project success. This paper discusses the features of two recognised terms: dispute avoidance procedure (DAP) and dispute resolution procedure (DRP). It explores the prospect of introducing DAP to the existing dispute resolution procedures in the Malaysian construction industry.

The paper presents the preliminary findings of interviews with several construction industry players on the acceptability of DAP. At a later stage, interviews with a broader spectrum of professionals in the industry will be conducted and the legal issues pertaining to the dispute avoidance mechanism will be examined in the quest to formulate a suitable DAP regime for the Malaysian construction industry. The study endeavours to offer a contribution to this field of inquiry with emphasis on the non-escalation mechanism based on a socio-legal research agenda.