Search results

There has been a significant increase in the use of relationship contracting in the global construction industry, with strategies such as Partnering, Alliancing and Public-Private Partnerships all used. These approaches were introduced to the Australian construction industry in the 1990s in an attempt to overcome the adversarial nature of traditional contracting methods. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence the successful implementation of Project Alliancing by means of a case study approach focusing on the procurement of a large water treatment plant. The research findings identify critical success factors (CSFs) both from literature and the case study project.

The research traces the origins of Alliancing and identifies CSFs by reviewing literature and analysing a current case study project. The paper first identifies CSFs on a global scale by establishing a theoretical framework of CSFs and then compares this to the case study project. A case study of an Australian Alliance project is investigated whereby a semi-structured interview process, involving senior managers from the six partners from the Alliance, was used in conjunction with a review of project documentation. The findings of the case study project are compared to the literature and any new CSFs are identified.

Alliancing helps to establish and manage the relationships between all parties, remove barriers and encourage maximum contribution to achieve success. Alliancing provides a project delivery method that promotes open communication, equality and a systematic problem resolution process. Team culture focusing on an “open book/no blame” approach is vital to the success of an Alliance. Five CSFs were identified as specifically influencing the success of the case study project: the use of an integrated Alliance office; the staging of project and stretch targets; establishing project specific key performance indicators; facilitating on-going workshops; and the integration of a web-based management programme.

The research findings assist both public and private sectors by identifying factors that are critical for success in Alliancing. Five additional factors were identified as specifically influencing the success of the case study project. Since this research was conducted, Australia has seen a further increase in relationship contracting where the likes of Alliancing is often used as the default approach for certain Public Sector projects. Ongoing research into Alliancing is vital to ensure the development of sustainable procurement models, successful operational viability, fair risk distribution and value for money.

This paper examines the profit distribution of engineering projects in the integrated project delivery (IPD) mode. IPD is a new delivery method that can ameliorate many of the disadvantages of traditional delivery methods and improve project results. In the implementation of IPD, the profit distribution is key for ensuring the success of IPD projects.

This paper described a new method for characterizing profit distribution in the IPD mode. The payment function and Shapley value of the cooperative fuzzy game of fuzzy alliance were defined by considering the Choquet integral of the fuzzy measure. The participation of each player was considered, and the influence of participation on the profit distribution was discussed. Lastly, changes in the profit distribution of core participants under different alliance combinations were studied.

A case from a report of The American Institute of Architects (AIA) was used to verify the fuzzy alliance model. There was a significant correlation between the degree of participation of the owner, architect and builder and the profit distribution among these three participants.

The theoretical research in this paper has some limitations. Initially, this paper selects a case with only three key participants in order to simplify the research. When there are many core participants, how to establish the alliance in the IPD mode and how to establish the corresponding profit distribution model, further work is certainly required to disentangle these complexities in models. Second, in this case, BIM technology has little impact on the income of the whole project. Therefore, this paper does not consider the impact of BIM technology on the marginal effect of the IPD project. Third, the contract type in the case is a custom tri-party based on IFOA. There is no classified discussion of the impact of different contracts on the profit distribute in the paper.

Based on the in-depth study of cooperative game with alliance structure, this paper promotes the classic cooperative game with alliance structure. The authors define the payoff function of fuzzy cooperative games by Choquet integral of fuzzy measure, and introduce the idea into the field of IPD. It aims at extending the solution to a cooperative game without a core. It can be obtained through a simple calculation. In the IPD alliance, the fuzziness and uncertainty of the participation degree of each participant will affect the profit of the whole project. The authors find that the higher the participation rate of players, the more profit each participant has. The greater the influence weight of the designer on the alliance, the lower the influence weight of the contractor on the alliance, the lower the participation of the contractor and the designer, and the lower the income distribution value of the three core participants. It shows a monotonous decline status.

For any construction enterprise, it can make more profits if it joins the grand alliance. In the IPD alliance, each participant can maximize their own interests, which can also promote the enthusiasm of construction enterprises to participate in the alliance and increase the application of IPD mode in AEC industry. This research method provides a new fast, effective, and more realistic solution method for cooperative countermeasures. It can be further extended to other cooperative game fields and advance a new research perspective and solution for the distribution of cooperative interests.

The contribution of this paper is the development of a fuzzy alliance model that provides a tool for measuring the profit distribution in IPD. This is the first quantitative model to connect the degree of participation with the profit distribution in IPD using fuzzy alliance.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into how a project alliance contract is conducive to the development of cooperative relationships between client and contractor organizations involved in a complex project.

A longitudinal case study of a complex construction project was conducted in which the contract was changed at the end of the negotiation period from a design‐build into a project alliance form.

Data show that opportunistic behaviour is reduced when there is an incentive structure, as is to be found in project alliances, for client and contractor organizations to cooperatively realize the project. However, it is not sufficient for project partners to agree upon an appropriate incentive structure. For cooperative relationships to develop, they also have to put substantial efforts into reducing their remaining inclinations to make use of opportunities that arise to deviate from the alliance contract.

It is shown that both principals and contractors not only need to carefully select staff for such projects; they also have to work with the people employed such that appropriate attitudes are reinforced and rewarded. Developing cooperative relationships in project alliances needs the surrounding working methods to offer support.

The longitudinal character of the case study offers exceptional opportunities for studying the dynamics in preventing and overcoming the deteriorating patterns of opportunistic behaviour that organizations regularly face in many traditional and design‐build projects.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a doctoral thesis that developed an Alliance Team Integration Performance Index (ATIPI), an assessment tool for measuring team integration performance in alliance projects. It provides a summary of the thesis findings, shares the candidate’s doctoral journey and discusses both the thesis “with publication” format and the doctoral programme at the University of Auckland.

This study employed a qualitative and quantitative research methodology (mixed methods research). Research methods applied as reported in this thesis include the Delphi questionnaire survey, interviews and empirical questionnaire surveys with the alliance experts involved in road infrastructure projects.

Results from the thesis indicate that the ATIPI is characterized by three elements: first, the most significant Key Indicators (KIs), signifying their dominant influence; second, the suitable quantitative measures for each of the KIs, to promote objective assessment over time; and third, the performance-level boundaries for each KI, to reduce the subjectivity of assessment and promote consistency. The assessment tool was found to be both practical and applicable based on a validation interview and subsequent testing with alliance experts on real life alliance infrastructure projects.

As team integration is the central tenet of alliance projects, the ATIPI is an ideal assessment tool to facilitate the measurement of team integration performance consistently and objectively over the life cycle of alliance projects. Also, the ATIPI is expected to make a fundamental and positive difference towards improving the integration practice of alliance teams.

This study extends the team integration literature by providing significant insights into the practical evaluation of team integration performance, specifically in alliance projects.

ICT projects, especially in the public sector, can have a substantial impact on society but are challenging due to organizational and technological complexities and uncertainties. Collaborative and cooperative project delivery models, namely, the project alliance method, can mitigate such challenges, but, thus far, have not been utilized in information and communication technology (ICT) projects. The purpose of this paper is to explore and understand the cross-field transfer process through which the project alliance model was applied to the ICT field from the construction sector.

An inductive case study of the ICT project alliance early stages was performed. Data were collected from the first known ICT alliance project, conducted in the context of the Finnish public sector digitalization.

The findings show how the activities of institutional entrepreneurs impact the cross-field transfer process during the ICT project alliance’s early stages. Furthermore, the results illustrate the characteristics of an ICT project alliance and compare those with more traditional project alliances.

The topic and results of the study are original and contribute to institutional research by identifying and studying the micro-level processes associated with the cross-field transfer process. The study also builds an initial understanding of a new method of organizing ICT projects and contributes to the project alliance literature. The managerial implications of the findings allow project practitioners to understand the emerging characteristics of an ICT project alliance, and enable managers in the ICT field to adjust and prepare their own organizations and processes for the application of the project alliance model.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain the circumstances in which a highly collaborative integrated project delivery form such an alliance is the most appropriate choice of delivering infrastructure projects.

The paper draws upon two previously published studies on alliancing to enable gathering insights from a quantitative study with some qualitative data that indicates project alliance delivery performance is high and suggests why it may be adopted as a project delivery form. A second qualitative study recently completed and published on integrated collaborative forms of project delivery such as alliances is re-analysed to better understand how and why this form may be successful. Together these two studies allowed a focus on the motivation to form an alliance and specific conditions relating to the alliance party’s level of ability and willingness to deeply collaborate.

The motivation to deeply collaborate may be triggered by specific internal and external trigger mechanisms. These are identified in the paper together with discussion about the requirement of parties to have sufficient knowledge, skills, attributes and experience to collaborate at a deeply engaged level.

The data used in the studies were from large scale infrastructure construction projects. The examples are mainly drawn from countries where collaboration is common and culturally acceptable; results may not apply to cultures, country or workplace, where high levels of competition are seen to be the optimal strategy for project delivery success. Also, the data were drawn from construction project management (PM). Other project-based areas such as professional services for example may present a different context and hence a different rationale.

The study provides deep insights about the nature of collaboration. It may have wider applicability.

Project organising is a social activity with social implications for how they are delivered that affect internal as well as external stakeholders. Being mindful about the motivation to choose a particular delivery form is important.

This is a new area of research in PM and the world faces a massive demand for large scale complex projects. This paper may provide a rational to drive policy in project delivery choices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of the Alliance Team Integration Performance Index (ATIPI) model as an assessment tool to measure the performance of team integration in alliance road infrastructure projects in New Zealand.

This study takes a case study approach, using a qualitative research method. Three road infrastructure projects under project alliance from the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) were selected as the cases. Data were collected through the interviews with a representative from the alliance management team from each case. Project records and documentation were also used to assist and support the actual data from the interviews.

The findings indicated that the ATIPI is performing as expected and found to be both practical and applicable to measure the team integration performance in light of real life case studies of alliance road infrastructure projects. Across the three case studies, there is evidence that high levels of integrated performance is consistently fostered by the project teams over the lifecycle of projects. In addition, based on the cross-case analysis from the application of the ATIPI on three cases, further work could enhance the probability of the utilization of the tool to manage different project alliance teams consistently and objectively.

The study was limited to three alliance road infrastructure projects in New Zealand. Further research into different alliance projects is required to establish a comprehensive database of alliance team integration performance, so that the model could be more beneficial for owner and non-owner participants, for benchmarking purposes.

As team integration practice can directly result in high performing teams in alliance projects, the ATIPI is an ideal model to facilitate the continuous evaluation of team integration performance consistently and objectively over the lifecycle of the projects.

This study extends the team integration literature in construction research by providing significant insights into the empirical evaluation of alliance team integration performance, as well as providing added value for the enhancement of any future development of performance evaluation models in construction research.

The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the understanding of socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings, using project alliance – the most contemporary approach to the management of large and complex projects – as an example. In particular, the paper also assesses how informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to facilitate relational capital in such a setting.

Data were collected by two case studies of complex infrastructure projects in a Northern European city. The analysis focuses on how socialization is managed across organizational interfaces within the alliance organization during the project tendering and development phase to create relational capital.

The findings indicate that significant emphasis is put on socialization in project alliances. However, while in the tendering phase both informal and formal socialization mechanisms are used to create relational capital; in the development phase informal socialization mechanisms are associated with higher levels of relational capital and formal socialization mechanisms are used to maintain the level of relational capital.

While operations and supply chain management research argues that socialization is critical to manage organizational interfaces and to create relational capital in buyer-supplier relationships, research has mainly focused on ongoing operations. This study complements the prior research by developing further insight into socialization in the context of temporary operations and organizational settings; such settings create a unique empirical context, posing different managerial challenges as the results also indicate.

Team integration is a concept that has been widely fostered in alliances as a way of improving collaborative relationships between diverse organisations. However, deeper insights into the practice of high levels of team integration remain elusive. The purpose of this paper is to develop a deeper understanding of team integration through the “lived experience” of practitioners in an alliance.

This study employed a qualitative research methodology. Using a phenomenological examination, via the lived experiences of 24 alliance practitioners, the practice of alliance team integration has been investigated based on the key indicators that foster alliance team integration: team leadership, trust and respect, single team focus on project objectives and key results areas, collective understanding, commitment from project alliance board, single and co-located alliance team, and free flow communication.

The findings highlight that alliancing gives the project teams’ flexibility to change and adapt, to advance the collaborative environment and that successful integration of multi-disciplinary project teams requires commitment to the identified indicators. These findings have led to the development of a framework of leadership for successful alliance integrated practices. It is proposed that to influence the leadership for the purpose of achieving successful integration practice, a team-centric approach is required which includes four elements: task and relationship-oriented behaviours; collaborative learning environments; cultivating cross-boundary networks; and collaborative governance.

As team integration is the central tenet of alliance projects, greater understanding regarding the leadership of integration practice is of value in leveraging the benefits of outstanding performance. Also, the results of the study are expected to be informative and provide insight for alliance teams to help them proactively recognise how the context of integrated teams is influenced by specific indicators, impacting on the extent of integration practice.

This study contributes to the current body of knowledge concerning the insights from the “lived experience” of alliance teams towards achieving a greater understanding of what contributes to the leadership of successful integration practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovation in alliance contracting in the New Zealand construction industry in terms of features (i.e. development process, risk/reward framework and leadership structure) that could influence successful project outcomes.

This study employed a qualitative research methodology. Three alliancing projects have been identified as the cases. By using interviews with the project’s owner and non-owner participants and related project documentation, the relevant features in the three examined cases were identified and compared.

The findings revealed differences in the reasoning why a particular alliance approach was implemented, how the alliance selection process was conducted and what kind of leadership structure was adopted. Interestingly, a number of unique and innovative practices to alliancing were also highlighted, notably the innovative agreements, innovative governance structure and innovative functional teams that influence the synergistically creative solutions to suit the clients’ needs.

The innovative practices identified in this study have brought the alliancing concept to a new level of practice in the industry. The findings provide a basis and a platform for discussion, both nationally and internationally, to gain greater understanding in managing different alliance contracting towards breakthrough outcomes.

This study extends the alliancing procurement literature, in particular, but also provides significant insights into innovative advancements to the collaborative procurement approaches.