Potential problems and risks for collaborative working and project team

Some would argue that the essential components of partnering include mutual objectives, early integration of key individuals, clear roles and responsibilities, spirit of team building, trusting relationships and informal and open communication (Crespin-Mazet and Partier, 2010). Despite these components and previously

reported benefits, traditional theories linked to collaborative processes, procurement and mechanisms have failed to understand why inherent tensions still arise. This clearly represents an area of concern and social and psychological forces may need to be considered (Cicmil and Marshall, 2005, pp.530-534). In response, some psychological research, both within construction management and the social

sciences domain, have attempted to analyse the problem. Coulson-Thomas (2005, pp.179-181), for instance, approached the problem through close examination of the behaviours and personalities of contracting parties and outlined that there are

generally two distinct categories of participant. There are some who are more willing to trust, cooperate, work with others and pursue associated partnership benefits. Conversely there are those who are reluctant to trust, prefer to operate

independently and “pursue actions that create rivalry, conflict and disputes”. Whilst these findings offer some insight, they are mostly anecdotal, not corroborated from other research sources and more grounded on opinions rather than robust empirical evidence. Furthermore, they do not offer any explanation or reasoning around influencing factors and why some individuals or circumstances will generate more trust than others. This thesis will attempt to bridge such gaps in literature

accordingly.

McAdam (2010, p.246) found that collaborative working and partnering

arrangements can fail if the entire supply chain is not engaged in the process. However, Briscoe and Dainty (2005, p.320) explained the problematic nature of such widespread engagement in reality. Their studies highlighted practical difficulties, associated with consultation, dialogue and communication amongst the large numbers of supply chain companies involved in any one project. These somewhat opposing schools of thought could represent a contention debate of supply chain management within partnering. Furthermore, it clearly raises the issue of whether full integration of the supply chain in partnering is in fact realistic in most cases.

Corroboration and support for the latter argument comes from Huang and Wilkinson (2013) whose studies focused on business relationships outside the construction industry. It is interesting to examine their findings that larger clients and consultants are sometimes reluctant to fully collaborate with smaller contractors, possibly on ‘lower tiers’ of the supply chain. Accordingly, they may prefer alternatively to

maintain their strong powerful position over them and resist partnering approaches in favor of more traditional contractual arrangements. Other claims to support Briscoe and Dainty’s argument are that there may be other practical barriers associated with implementation of full supply chain integration strategies. These may be related to the fragmented and short term nature of the construction industry where lessons learnt are seldom passed from one project to another (Cheung et al., 2001, p.245). Notwithstanding these arguments, there was an opposing argument presented by Arditi and Gunaydin (1997, p.235). Their findings corroborated and gave support to McAdam (2010, p.246) for whole supply chain integration and advocated total quality

management in partnering as a potential way to facilitate it. In practice they

concurred that this would entail “looking backwards and forwards through the supply chain and beyond the organisations’ boundaries”. Despite the obvious practical barriers articulated by Briscoe and Dainty (2005, p.320), there have been further strong arguments made to support the McAdam (2010, p.246) argument based on the benefits that could be accrued around processes linked to innovation and efficient production (Bygballe et al., 2010, pp.240-245; Inkpen and Tsang, 2005). The UK Government has also engaged on this potentially contentious issue and recommended “… ‘flattening’ supply chain hierarchy to encourage an increased levels of collaboration between all project participants” (House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee, 2008, p.294). These opposing arguments certainly demonstrate a disparity of opinions around whole supply chain integration. The emergence of very different schools of thought could be interpreted as a

potential gap in literature and the need for further research around supply chain management in partnering. This thesis has responded to the gap with qualitative analysis of data providing more insight in this particular area, later in the study. Notwithstanding the aforementioned perceived advantages, partnering has attracted its critics in the past. Nystrom (2007), for instance, carried out studies on many different projects, comprising both partnering and non-partnering arrangements, and findings indicated that there were no significantly different influences on overall project performance between the two procurement approaches. The view appears not to be an isolated opinion and other critics have supported Nystrom’s argument in the past. Wood and Ellis (2004), for example, opined that limited analysis has been conducted and little empirical evidence available to substantiate claims that

partnering outcomes have been highly beneficial. Based on this premise, there have also been reports that previous studies have focused on success stories and not taken into full consideration the psychological and social issues, which some would describe as intrinsic flaws (Critchlow, 1998). Whilst opinions will fluctuate on the debate, there would appear to be a consensus of opinion that partnering

arrangements can be fragile. In this context, partners, suppliers and contractors especially, enter into such agreements, built up on future intentions and promises. However they may become potentially vulnerable owing to levels of commitment, resources requires and disparity of equality, power and rewards within these

relationships (Alderman and Ivory, 2007). Perhaps it explains that whilst partnering and strategic alliances can undoubtedly provide competitive advantage they are tempered by high rates of failure (Langfield-Smith, 2008).

In considering the risks of partnering it is worth contemplating the motivations for some parties in wanting to enter into them. Alderman and Ivory (2007) expressed scepticism of some clients’ motivations for partnering and suggested that these could revolve around lower costs and increased profit margins rather than adding value to projects. They described partnering at its worst as a “discursive smokescreen behind which to conceal ‘business as usual’ whilst at the same time motivating suppliers and contractors to ‘go the extra mile’.” It was also explained that partnering frequently requires large sources of commitment and resourcing and could as such be prone to risks of failure and abandonment. For these reasons they advocated that the risks should be carefully considered, especially by those partners with commercially weaker positions from the outset. This raises another important issue on whether the disparity of power between clients and their ‘partners’ may have allowed the former to use power derived from scarcity of work in the construction sector to enhance their commercial interests. Mathews et al. (2003, p.167) certainly agreed with this belief and explained that there is potential to bully and intimidate contractors, through a ‘take it or leave it approach’, to accept unfair returns under the banner of a

collaboration.

In consideration of the aforementioned arguments, the interesting thing that these dilemmas, and the lack of ‘joined up’ long term strategies and policies therein, have raised is whether the benefits of collaborations outweigh the inherent costs and disruption in achieving such alliances in the first place (Huxham and Vangen, 2000). This is a particularly crucial question and one which will be considered later in this review of literature.