Project Management in Construction by Walker Anthony

Author:Walker, Anthony
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118500392
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

5.8 Partnering

In the 1980s, alliances began to be formed between firms in business generally to create medium- to long-term relationships to the commercial benefit of all members of an alliance. The most common form was joint ventures (JVs), which brought together the complementary strengths of the combining firms. They take various forms both contractually and equity based. Whilst such arrangements are made between and amongst firms in the construction milieu such as design firms, contracting firms and subcontractors, particularly on larger complex international projects, a distinctive form of alliance known as partnering also emerged in the construction industries of the United States and United Kingdom about the same time and became established over a decade ago (Bresnen 2009). At its simplest level, partnering is about establishing the best possible working relationship between parties to a construction project with a view to sharing benefits between the ‘partners’. Partnering in the UK construction industry was initially seen to take place between construction clients and contractors and, whilst this continues to remain a primary focus, partnering now also takes place between them and others in the project process such as main contractors, subcontractors, design teams and also between such organisations leading to a wide range of types of organisation which can be involved in partnering arrangements. Wide variations also exist in the tools and techniques used such as charters, dispute resolution procedures and workshops. ‘Standard’ partnering patterns are therefore difficult to discern. Nevertheless, partnering’s fundamental aim is to improve cooperation and reduce the adversarial nature of the industry. Its focus is behavioural rather than structural and, in terms of systems theory, can be seen to be directed at reducing differentiation and increasing integration.

The features expected to engender the collaboration which underpins partnering are such as trust, commitment, joint objectives, mutual respect, ongoing improvement and openness. Partnering has been subject to a plethora of definitions (Eriksson 2010; Li et al. 2000). There is certainly no commonly accepted definition of partnering which is hardly surprising considering the variety of shades of partnering which exist. In fact, Bresnen’s (2009) conception of partnering has led him to believe that ‘in such a context it is likely to remain a difficult if not impossible exercise’.

The original idea of partnering was for clients and main contractors to establish an ongoing relationship spanning many projects, often intended to be a continuing process (strategic partnering/alliances), for example in the case of developers and public bodies such as large hospital authorities which are likely to be continually commissioning projects. Indeed, Fernie and Thorpe (2007) find that workload continuity/repeat work is fundamental to making sense of what is central to supply chain management and, by extrapolation, to partnering, that is improved relationships. Most definitions reflect this intention; however, partnering is also said to take place on single projects and with various levels of cooperation, many of which are said to fall short of ‘full’ partnering but which still carry the same name (Matthews et al. 1996). In such cases, all the benefits of

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