Early contractor involvement (ECI) faces many barriers because it differs from traditional business practices. Public owners, especially, face a major challenge because they must comply with international and national legislation. The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that illustrates the various approaches that public project owners can take to implement ECI.,In addition to a literature review, three groups of case studies were carried out. The case studies were based on 54 semi-structured in-depth interviews with key personnel from 21 Norwegian public projects and document study.,In all, 25 approaches to ECI were identified during the research. Twelve of these were used in the cases studied.,There are several approaches to ECI that are suitable for public owners. However, the contractor’s contribution depends on which approach is implemented and how it is implemented.,As original contribution, this study presents a novel framework that defines options for implementing ECI in public projects. Furthermore, this paper provides insights on how ECI can be implemented in public projects based on Norwegian experiences. Although the empirical data of the study is limited to Norwegian public projects, this study contributes to knowledge about how to implement ECI internationally.

中文翻译：

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早期承包商参与（ECI）：在公共项目中进行的方式

早期承包商参与（ECI）面临许多障碍，因为它不同于传统的商业惯例。尤其是公共所有者，因为他们必须遵守国际和国家法律，因此面临着重大挑战。本文的目的是开发一个框架，以说明公共项目所有者可以采用的各种方法来实施ECI。除了进行文献综述之外，还进行了三组案例研究。案例研究基于对来自21个挪威公共项目的关键人员进行的54次半结构化深度访谈和文献研究。在研究过程中，共确定了25种ECI方法。在所研究的案例中使用了其中的12种。ECI有几种适用于公共所有者的方法。然而，作为原始的贡献，本研究提出了一个新颖的框架，该框架定义了在公共项目中实施ECI的选择。此外，本文根据挪威的经验提供了有关如何在公共项目中实施ECI的见解。尽管该研究的经验数据仅限于挪威的公共项目，但该研究有助于人们了解如何在国际上实施ECI。