<b>GOVERNANCE FRAMEWORK FOR OPTIMIZING QUALITY MANAGEMENT PROCESSES IN HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION THROUGH BLOCKCHAIN INTEGRATION</b>

<p dir="ltr">Highway construction projects continue to face persistent quality-management challenges stemming from fragmented data, limited transparency, and uneven accountability across multi-agency networks. This dissertation develops and empirically validates a Blockchain Highway Construction Governance Framework (BHC-GF) designed to guide effective and compliant blockchain integration within the Department of Transportation (DOT) quality-assurance and quality-control (QA/QC) processes.</p><p dir="ltr">Using Design Science Research methodology, the study synthesizes governance principles from literature and stakeholder practice, then tests the resulting framework through a survey-based empirical study analyzed with multiple imputation, nonparametric tests, and variance-based structural modeling. Findings show that blockchain adoption in this regulated environment is governance-led: perceived benefits enhance governance credibility, and governance evaluation, rather than interface simplicity, most strongly predict adoption intent.</p><p dir="ltr">The validated BHC-GF operationalizes governance across five tiers: strategic, managerial, operational, technical, and compliance, clarifying decision rights, auditability, data lineage, and interoperability requirements for permissioned blockchain systems in QA/QC. The dissertation contributes (1) an empirically grounded governance artifact tailored to highway construction; (2) quantitative evidence that governance mechanisms mediate the pathway from perceived benefits to adoption; and (3) practical guidance enabling DOTs, contractors, engineers, IT/cybersecurity specialists, and developers to design pilots and controls aligned with Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 23 CFR 637 quality expectations.</p><p dir="ltr">By aligning blockchain capability with credible governance, the BHC-GF advances transparent record-keeping, accountability, and scalable quality improvement across the highway construction lifecycle.</p>