Communicating the results
4.6 Mean Ranking
4.6.3 Effective Strategies to Collaboration
For the 22 strategies pinpointed, the mean scores covered a wide-ranging, from the lowest score of 3.907 for “involvement of facilitator” to the highest score of 4.477 for “effective communication”. It is worth highlighting that although “communication problem” has been ranked as the second most significant barrier that limits the successfulness in realising collaboration,
“effective communication” on the other hand was ranked as the most critical collaboration factor. This is consistent with that of the study by Soibelman, et al. (2011) indicate that one of the most critical prerequisite to achieve collaboration is efficient communication. In Malaysia, effective communication between project stakeholders was ranked at third significant collaboration factor out of 12 in a research by Liu, Rahmawati and Zawawi (2019) regarding the critical success factors of collaborative approach. The same result was reported by Chen and Chen (2007) in Taiwan. Likewise, Yeung, Chan and Chan (2007) regarded that for the intention of ensuring the success of project alliancing, parties from all levels must pay attention to open communication whether at personal level, business level, or operational level.
Chan, et al. (2004) further listed out a lot of communication tools that can be adopted for facilitating collaboration among team members such as email contacts, face-to-face meeting, mobile phones, landlines, teleconferencing, fax, and online meeting tools.
Moreover, as indicated by the research findings, mutual objectives among project stakeholders were identified to be one of the major contributors to collaboration success. Only clients and consultants think that mutual objectives are one of the most significant strategies for collaboration where clients ranked it at first and consultants considered it second. The contractors did not seem to think that the alignment of partners’ goal is one of the significant strategies as they rated it lower. This is further supported by Karlsson and Kindbom (2018) as one contractor highlighted that it is sometimes quite difficult to know what the client and the project owner really want. Thus, it is hard to gather a unifying vision from the project team due to the lack of integration. In essence, mutual goals that are commonly used include meeting about environmental rules, delivering the project on time and within budget, attaining good reputations of the partnered parties, enhancing cost-effectiveness, effective technology transfer and sharing of best work practices (Chen and Chen, 2007).
In overall, trust building is ranked as the third critical strategies to the development of collaboration practices with a mean score of 4.358. This item has been assigned a higher rank by both contractors and clients (second and fourth, respectively), but out of the top 10 strategies by the consultants. The discrepancy may be caused by their different areas of involvement in project activities. Törneman (2015) opined that design professionals often insist on creating innovation based on their professional logic without trusting the contractor input, which could hinder the intentions of adopting collaboration throughout entire team. On the contrary, the contractors and clients held different perspectives on this ranking. This is in line with the findings reported by Nevstad, et al. (2018) who believe that a collaborative relationship can be fruitful by developing trust between client and contractor sides without hidden agendas. In general, no successful strategic alliances can be established without trust (Yeung, Chan and Chan, 2007; Challender, Farrell and Sherratt, 2014).
Another point worth mentioning is that performance measurement was ranked as the fourth important factor that leads to collaboration success. This is similar to the findings of Yeomans, Bouchlaghem and El-Hamalawi (2006).
They further suggest that the use of performance measurement should cover
wide range of site activities, in order to eliminate any unnecessary waste and unproductive activities. Measurable goals form the foundations performance measurement to determine and evaluate individual progress performance (Chan, et al., 2004). Liu, et al. (2015) mentioned that performance measurement in construction has been based on three levels: industry, corporate and project, with emphasis being placed on KPIs and PMSs. The common aspects for measurement include cost, project duration, quality of workmanship, health and safety, meeting specification, client’s satisfaction, user’s expectation and so on (Muhammad and Johar, 2017). Furthermore, Yeung, Chan and Chan (2007) stress that performance measurement should be widely developed to provide knowledge and feedback about how joint performance can be improved.
In addition, effective problem resolution is perceived as one of the most agreed strategies to develop collaboration which is ranked at fifth by the respondents. It was well-known fact that unanticipated problems, arguments, conflicts, misunderstandings, and disagreements are usual in a relationship. To address these problems, an effective problem resolution is needed, allowing the formation of collaborative relationship to be realised (Kumar, et al., 2017).
This is in agreement with Sting, Mihm and Loch (2020) who emphasis that joint problem solving is an important enabler of collaboration. Joint problem solving enables simultaneous input from diverse parties who own different expertise or knowledge levels and thus unlock creativity, result in higher solution quality. Apart from that, it is believed that senior management also plays a vital role in facilitating the problem resolution process by jointly solve the issues that emerge in the collaborative arrangement rather than lip services (Akintoye and Main, 2007).
Involvement of facilitator is ranked last, despite a high mean value of 3.907. The similar result was found in the findings of Löfgren and Eriksson (2009) in Sweden. It reflects that the Malaysian construction practitioners were still unaware of the practice of partnering facilitators. Overall, the strategies listed in Table 4.9 are considered justified, as they have a collective mean value of almost 4, which is close to the satisfactory level (Ali, et al., 2010).