A Resource Perspective on the Long-term Effects of project Partnering

Paper in proceeding, 2020

Project partnering has become an all the more established form for client-contractor collaboration. Although a well-reported phenomenon in the construction management literature, most studies focus on partnering practices in single projects and the immediate effects for the directly involved actors. Few investigations have studied the long-term effects of partnering, including both directly involved project actors and indirectly affected actors in relation to the constructed assets. If partnering is meant to enhance the quality of constructed assets, it should also improve their ability to support user activities. With the purpose of exploring the long-term effects of partnering in relation to interrelated projects and the various users of the constructed assets, the following research question is posed: what are the direct and indirect effects of project partnering on a long-term basis? To scrutinize this, a longitudinal case study covers a series of projects involving the same key actors and the subsequent operations of one of the constructed assets-a first of its kind proton radiation clinic in the Nordic countries. By mapping the involved actors’ resources across the projects and within a larger health care system, various effects are traced. A key conclusion is that the actors directly involved in partnering have the opportunity to reap several benefits from joint resource development within and across projects, while the actors using the constructed asset struggle in relating the developed resources within the projects to resources of the wider permanent context of the building in use.