Vendor Financial Strength, Project Methodology, and Performance: A Resource Perspective Insight from Ghana's Public Sector

In Ghana, persistent delays, cost overruns and quality deficiencies have undermined public-sector construction projects, even when contractors had a large financial capacity. Such a paradox reveals an important gap in the literature about the processes by which financial resources turn into project performance. Thus, this study seeks to fill the gap by testing the mediating role of project methodology on the vendor financial strength and construction project performance relationship. The study further examines whether project methodological competence acts as an important pathway by which vendor financial capacity affects construction project outcomes. The study found that vendor financial strength has a positive impact on both project methodology and construction project performance. Moreover, project methodology has a positive direct impact on construction project performance and partially mediates the link between vendor financial strength and construction project performance. These findings imply that vendor financial capacity does not automatically translate to effective project delivery, but its association is mediated by the quality of methodological processes followed in project implementation. From a theoretical standpoint, the research contributes to extending the resource-based view and institutional theory by further explaining project methodology as a dynamic capability for deploying financial resources across complex institutional contexts. Practically, the results imply that public procurement systems reflected in Ghana will do well by emphasizing methodological robustness, managerial discipline as well as governance quality in their assessments along with financial assessment criteria to enhance construction project performance.