Partnerships among different participants in construction industry of Taiwan: Critical success and failure factors

In a traditional contract environment in the construction industry, the client and construction professionals often develop a Win-Lose mentality in operating projects. This condition often creates conflicts in communication and cooperation, or could even lead to litigations between clients and professionals. The progress of production would thus be affected greatly. Partnering is achieved through the cooperation of both client and professional. With little start-up costs, partnering can create a Win-Win situation for both the client and professionals. Partnering can improve efficiency in construction projects, and is one of the most innovative ways in reducing conflicts in construction project. The purpose of the study was to gather the construction industry´s opinions on critical success and failure factors of partnering agreements. The data have been analyzed by use of means and ranking techniques. The study shows that ⌈effective communication⌋ is perceived as the most important critical success factor in the construction project partnering. Some of the other perceived important critical success factors are ⌈technical expertise⌋, ⌈consistent with objectives⌋, ⌈questioning attitudes⌋ and ⌈commitment to quality⌋. The study also suggests that in the construction industry, ⌈issues being allowed to slide and escalate⌋, ⌈lack of continuous open and honest communication⌋ , ⌈controlling body´s being lack of technical knowledge⌋, ⌈stakeholders who don´t commit to the partnering arrangement⌋ and ⌈stakeholders who don´t develop a win-win attitude⌋ are viewed as the main factors which often cause failure of alliances and partnering.