Development of an Effective Model for Collaboration within the UK Construction Industry
This work arose from Egan’s speech in 2008 on the 10th anniversary of his report about collaboration in construction projects and also the Author’s experience of procurement routes being used for such projects. The Author’s research began with her MSc dissertation on this topic, from which two papers were published. This work was extended for this PhD thesis which has formulated a comprehensive and practical model as an aid to effective collaboration between parties to construction projects. No such model exists in the literature. The model is based on extensive consultation with professionals working within the construction industry, using a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology. In summary, the research had six distinct phases: identification of relevant aspects of collaboration from published literature; interviews to identify currently important aspects; rank ordering of these aspects; classification of the aspects and formulating definitions of collaboration; generation of the model; and validating the model. Formulating the model began with 48 aspects which were derived from interviews with a range of professionals working within the construction industry. A structured questionnaire was then used to rank them statistically in order of their relative importance, from which 18 were identified as being essential. The data were then analysed for statistically significant patterns to validate its robustness. A definition of collaboration that represents the current use of the word within the UK construction industry was developed. A further literature review, on actual practice in contrast to the previous review, focused on the essential aspects previously identified to produce a model that had practical relevance to improving collaboration in the UK construction industry. The model was designed initially to be read by aspect but when validating the model some Respondents expressed a preference to read the model by project phase or by participant’s role. The model was then revised so it can be read in these three alternative ways. The model was validated through structured discussion with a further set of professional Respondents, resulting in the final model, which is too comprehensive to sit sensibly within the thesis so it available as a website: https://collaborationinconstruction.wordpress.com.
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