capability of two or more independent firms working together, planning and implementing SC operations with common goals in mind. Lavikka et al. (2015: 206) portrays collaborative practice as a process that requires planning and synchronisation which could potentially lead to the spontaneous development of relationships between the parties involved in the course of working together. Collaboration as a core principle has pluralistic advantages including the potential to encourage real-time information exchange required to prepare for, respond to and recover from supply chain disruptions while reducing their impacts (Scholten & Schilder, 2015: 473).
2.5.1. Collaborative practice in construction
Emuze and Smallwood (2014: 296) describe collaborative practice in construction as the ability of firms or entities, project teams, and/or individuals to agree upon mutual goals, decision-making processes and troubleshooting systems while focusing on specific improvement to their normal performance objectives in a project undertaking. Eyaa et al. (2010: 234) highlight the key dimensions of collaborative practice as including information sharing, incentive alignment and decision coordination. Collaborative practice has generated more attention to contracting firms as a result of a shift in responsibilities among contracting partners. Bemelmans et al. (2012: 343) explain the increased focus on collaborative practice by pointing out the fact that the coordinating role previously held by the client has, in recent years, fallen upon the main contractor. This recent development has brought about benefits and challenges that require careful examination.
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2.5.2. Categories of collaborative practices
Anumba et al. (2002, cited by Shelbourn et al., 2012: 8-9) outlines four different modes of collaboration which relate to types of interactions found among collaboration participants and the pattern of communication adopted in the project, namely:
a. Face-to-face collaboration – normally involves physical meetings in real time.
b. Asynchronous collaboration – conducted in a shared location but not necessarily in real time (e.g. electronic media such as notice board/memos).
c. Synchronous distributed collaboration – real time interactions among participants from various locations (e.g. video conferencing).
d. Asynchronous distributed collaboration – participant interaction from dispersed locations but not in real time (e.g. electronic mail systems).
Moreover, Shelbourn et al. (2012: 9) define collaboration as:
• Mutual –participants share the same responsibility and level of input to an assigned task; • Exclusive –participants have exclusive responsibility for different parts of assigned tasks
but occasionally interact to coordinate the different tasks; and
• Single point control –participants delegate responsibilities to someone in order to lead and allocate additional responsibilities.
This simplified classification of collaborative practices underpins the various facets of collaborative working when examined from within every activity developed on site. The forms of collaboration can be a fixed length of time or a permanent arrangement (Xue, 2010: 197). With regard to contracting organisations in their entirety, collaborative practices can take the following forms:
• Separate organisations maintain their independence but work jointly on some activities or functions;
• Organisations with resources or expertise offer assistance to other organisations i.e. a large national organisation working with a small local group;
• A new organisation to do joint work on some activities or functions
• A group structure where a “parent” organisation governs a group of “ subsidiary” organisations; and
• Merger to form a new organisation working as one body on all activities (National Council for Voluntary Organisations, 2007, cited by Xue et al., 2010: 197).
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2.5.3. Effective Collaboration
According to Xue et al. (2010: 197), collaboration has advantages that appeal to organisations, namely, increased probability of winning bids; faster, better or cheaper development or deliver of products or services or markets; in-depth learning; meeting an external requirement; and saving costs. Collaboration is said to have a substantial positive impact on project performance, not only with regard to time, cost, and quality objectives, but also for more general outcomes such as greater innovation and client satisfaction (Akintoye & Main, 2007: 604).
Douma et al. (2000, cited by Akintoye & Main, 2007: 604) is of the opinion that the need to collaborate is determined by a number of factors, namely, market opportunities; time pressures and the number of alternative options available and they thus list the following key drivers for strategic fit in collaboration:
i. Collaboration is only advisable when participants have a shared vision of future developments and of the impact that these developments will have on their individual positions;
ii. That precondition for strategic fit is compatibility of strategies;
iii. Alliance partners will only be prepared to make concessions when the alliance is of strategic importance to them;
iv. A successful union requires mutual dependency;
v. Any alliance should have added value for the partners and/or their customers and; vi. Partners must carefully consider whether the market will accept the alliance.
Shelbourn et al. (2012: 13) identify the key drivers of collaboration and further expand the list by providing five more critical factors, over and above a shared vision, to include:
i. Stakeholder engagement – collaboration leaders need to ensure that all key participants are consulted on the practices to be employed during the collaboration;
ii. Trust – time and resources are needed to enable all participants to build trusting relationships;
iii. Communication – a common means of communication should be established and agreed upon by all participants in the collaboration;
iv. Process – the outworking of the collaboration in relation to both business and project, should be known by all key participants; and
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v. Technologies – an agreement on those technologies to be used is required to ensure the collaboration is easily implemented and managed.
Collaboration therefore requires trust between partners, clearly defined processes and efficient communication infrastructures supported by appropriate technologies (Shelbourn et al., 2012: 13). Trust between collaborators can never be overemphasised, reasons Ochieng et al. (2013: 99) who believes that, without an appropriate level of trust, true collaboration would simply not take place regardless of the previously mentioned factors.
2.5.4. Enablers and barriers of collaborative practice in construction
Kumar and Banerjee (2014: 186) indicate that collaborative practices provides a unique cultural environment which is not limited by boundaries while other forms of relationships between entities are limited to synchronisation of decisions and processes. Ideally, the relationships forged by collaborative practice are long-term partnerships, however, owing to the character of construction projects, one-time alliances are much more common (Lonngren et al., 2010: 406). Love et al. (2004 cited by Lonngren et al., 2010: 406) cautions organisations that enter into one-time partnerships to be cognisant of possible percussions and effects relating to:
a. Self-governance (understanding their own capabilities relative to demand).
b. Responsiveness (the ability to recognise the changes in demands that will have an adverse effect on its operation immediately).
c. Flexibility (the ability to respond to changes in client needs and demands). Shelbourn et al. (2012: 9-10) highlight the following benefits of collaboration: • Added value to a project;
• Increased revenues and profits; • Improved business efficiency;
• Improved productivity of individuals as a result of being part of a team; • Improved customer/end user satisfaction, and
• Enhanced collective image of the groups within the collaboration partnership.
Scholten and Schilder (2015: 474) argue that while collaborative practice brings about benefits such as higher visibility, flexibility and reduced lead times, they are mindful of the fact that this practice might not always be possible or wanted by SC contributors. Shelbourn et al. (2012: 10-15) summarise the following possible barriers to collaborative practice:
23 • Time and data losses during information exchange;
• Incompatibility between communication infrastructures used by different participants; • Misunderstandings caused by ill-defined information;
• Complex iterative negotiations when solutions conflict;
• Lack of effective and efficient tools for organising and exchanging project information; • The coordination of complex work processes requiring input from different organisations; • Lack of awareness of the characteristics of others within the social, ethical and
technological contexts;
• Lack of consistency in collaboration support for ‘collaboration spaces’ and multimedia conferencing;
• Lack of support for creativity, discourse management and conflict resolutions; • Collaborating organisations having different visions, mission, goals and priorities; • Organisational ‘culture’ and methods of communication are often different; • A lack of focus and consensus on the delegation of tasks;
• An imbalance of resources – time, money, human (frequent turnover of participants); • Confidentiality, intellectual property and legal considerations;
• Technological incompatibility;
• A lack of understanding of the expertise, knowledge and language of the other collaborating participants.
It is imperative to strike a balance between the enablers and barriers of collaboration and to further explore ways in which this can achieved. As brought out by Akintoye and Main (2007: 608), for any collaboration to be successful, relationships between participants need to be exceptional and should consider teambuilding (coordination and integration of project organisations to increase productivity, efficiency, motivation, goal attainment, group dynamics and dispute minimisation) within contracting firms.