Exploring critical success factors for partnering in construction projects

The construction industry is a very competitive high-risk business. Many problems, such as little cooperation, lack of trust, and ineffective communication resulting in adversarial relationships between contracting parties, are facing the construction industry. Partnering is perhaps one of the most innovative developments in delivering a project efficiently and reducing construction disputes. It provides a sound basis for a "win-win" climate and synergistic teamwork. Project partnering in the Hong Kong construction industry has gained in popularity since 1994. A number of potential factors contributing to partnering success have emerged and deserve further study. This paper presents a review of the development of the partnering concept in general and identifies critical success factors for partnering projects from the Hong Kong perspective in particular. Through a postal questionnaire survey geared toward project participants with hands-on partnering experience, the opinions of various parties - clients, consultants, and contractors were sought and evaluated in relation to partnering success factors. The relationship between the perception of partnering success and a set of success factors hypothesized in the study was derived using factor analysis and multiple regression. The results indicated that certain requirements must be met for partnering to succeed. In particular, the establishment and communication of a conflict resolution strategy, a willingness to share resources among project participants, a clear definition of responsibilities, a commitment to a win-win attitude, and regular monitoring of partnering process were believed to be the significant underlying factors for partnering success. Such an identification of success factors could well formulate effective strategies for minimizing construction conflicts and improving project performance.