Partnering in construction projects

Abstract

Project partnering is often applied in construction projects to solve conflict and disputes among project team members in the construction stage. However, project partnering exercises only focus on identified conflict at the post-contract stage and ignore latent conflict or risks arising at the design stage. This may become a key issue in the construction stage, and eventually affect cooperation in teamwork, project completion, construction cost, quality of products, etc. To solve this problem, a long-term partnering process is introduced in this study. It aims to manage, prevent, and solve problems in the early design stage, establish the teamwork relationship and enhance management skills at the construction stage to finally achieve better project performance. The aim of long-term partnering is to form a partnership and implement the process at the design stage. In order to explore this process, this study aims to investigate the characteristics of long-term partnering for complicated construction projects. The objectives of the research include: 1. Reviewing the up-to-date studies of project partnering, contract management and long-term partnering; 2. Identifying long-term partnering factors (preparation and process) for construction projects; 3. Identifying the long-term partnering project outcomes; 4. Investigating the relationships between component partnering factors (refer to above item 2) and its outcomes (refer to above item 3); 5. Verifying the results of the outcomes via case studies; 6. Developing a long-term partnering model and proposing recommendations for construction projects. A long-term partnering model [Preparatory factor (power/information sharing/specific information/preparation of workshop) - Process (team/task-related) - Outcome] is developed to investigate the major characteristics of long-term partnering among various team members in construction projects. Five hypotheses are established in this research including (1) the impact of preparatory factors on team-related process, (2) the impact of preparatory factors on task-related process, (3) the relationships between the team-related and task-related processing factors, (4) the influences of team-related processing factors on project outcomes, and (5) the influences of task-related processing factors on project outcomes. The hypotheses are transformed into a questionnaire survey and analyzed by various statistical techniques (factor analysis, reliability, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression). To avoid bias from methods, a triangulation method, between-methods, is applied for both quantitative and qualitative methods. Out of 1,085 questionnaires, 145 questionnaires are returned and 135 are completed and valid for analysis. In order to verify the quantitative result, a qualitative analysis with three cases studies is conducted to cross-validate the quantitative data. The three cases are adopted with different types and nature of projects in Hong Kong, while the invited interviewees are from different professional backgrounds with partnering experience. In the study, the five hypotheses are supported by the results from both summary and the case study. The results reveal that (1) power, interests, and preparation of workshops induce impact on team-related process and task-related process; (2) senior attitude affects team operation; (3) specific information (documentation and site constraint) has an influence on cooperation and communication, and is well managed through risk and conflict management; (4) risk and conflict management produce significant outcomes; (5) project outcomes of project performance, satisfaction, cohesion, and long-term relationship are achieved by team-related and task-related processes. The findings indicate that partnering processes such as team-related and task-related processes statistically significantly influence the outcomes and are affected by partnering preparation such as personal power and interest, and specific information. To control and prevent conflict, enhance teamwork capability, develop a long-term relationship, and improve team performance in project construction, participants are encouraged to select suitable partners and implement long-term partnering as early as possible in the design stage.

Date of Award	15 Jul 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	City University of Hong Kong
Supervisor	Mei-yung LEUNG (Supervisor)