A Comparative Study of Partnering Projects in Construction between Hong Kong and Australia

Over the past two decades, partnering has been evolved as a well-received and an extensively adopted management approach to undertaking construction projects in many countries or regions. This paper aims to provide in-depth understanding and regional comparisons of construction partnering in relation to the implementation process, perceived benefits, critical success factors, major barriers and effective strategies for successful implementation between Hong Kong and Australia. A number of partnering case study projects in construction launched in both Hong Kong and Australia are selected, presented, investigated and compared. Detailed information and data regarding the selected project cases are collected and lessons learned through the partnered projects are summarized for enlightening industrial practitioners in carrying out future construction projects with the partnering approach. The research study demonstrated that partnering can be implemented under both structured and unstructured approaches (with formal or informal partnering workshops, with or without partnering charter and partnering performance monitoring matrix, establishment of problem resolution escalation ladder or not, etc. Furthermore, the research findings indicated that a combined use of partnering with other project management approaches (e.g. value engineering or management) and suitable contract types (e.g. Design-and-Build, Guaranteed Maximum Price, Target Cost Contracting, etc.) can generate better overall project outcomes.