Constructing Relationally Integrated Teams

Abstract

Worldwide initiatives to improve construction industry performance converge on the common need for more effective teamworking. This is increasingly critical in the context of complex multiparticipant construction projects. Clashes of organizational, operational, national, and/or professional cultures point to the need for “relational integration” as a prerequisite for such synergistic teamworking. This paper draws on recent approaches to promoting trust and cooperation through (1) basic teambuilding techniques in general and (2) partnering and alliancing in construction projects. It then focuses on analyzing the views of Singapore-based contractors as derived from a survey to elicit the hypothesized 28 factors facilitating relationally integrated teambuilding, and 31 factors deterring such integration in construction project teams. On the whole: (1) 27 of the 28 factors facilitating integrated project team, and 26 of the 31 factors deterring integrated project team, are significant; (2) these two sets of factors could be represented by four and five “broad factors,” respectively; and (3) except in a few cases, respondents from large and medium companies, as well as with and without experience in RC, have similar perceptions of the importance levels of different factors. These two sets of critical factors, as identified in this paper, complement two other previously isolated sets of factors that facilitate or deter a “relational contracting” culture. Taken together, they feed into a consolidated strategy for releasing the latent energies and potential synergies that should yield the much higher construction project performance levels that have been called for worldwide.