This research tries to provide a first direction in measuring collaborative trends. By being able to measure collaborative trends, more research can be done towards the effects of events and the timing of collaborative practices to implement in projects. This is done by providing an answer on the main research question: “How can collaborative trends be identified in a project?” The RECAP assessment tool proved to be an elaborate tool to assess the collaboration quality on a project. However, the main issue in using the tool more frequently is the large amount of questions. By reducing the number of questions of the RECAP and making them more comprehensible for both managers and team members, the ACT tool is developed. The ACT tool measures collaborative practices, relational attitudes and team working quality over time using 20 variables. An added dimension in assessing the client and Fluor differently proved a useful dimension in assessing the alignment of both parties in terms of collaboration. By discussing the results of the tool during a workshop, joint action points are formulated to maintain and improve the collaboration quality. One of the starting points of this research is that collaboration is an often-underestimated topic where companies are searching on how to implement it right. This survey is a first step in evaluating collaborations more frequently making it possible to identify variables impacting the collaboration and their effect over time. This tool is able to provide direct feedback to managers and team members on collaboration on the project and showing areas of improvement. Statistical data analyses proved that the tool is able to measure several collaborative trends during the SELECT phase of the project. Time related trends as well as non-time related trends can be identified using the ACT tool. Evidence shows that while no significant changes over have been measured using a weekly interval, the collaboration did improve when comparing data from week 1 and week 7. During the seven weeks the client and Fluor became more aligned in their perceptions towards collaboration, showing that both parties achieved a better mutual understanding of the collaboration between both parties. Larger differences have been found in the between the management teams and team members, where the management teams were always more positive towards the collaboration than team members. Especially towards the ending of the SELECT phase differences became bigger. The tool can be used for any project with a client-contractor relationship. When there are multiple (sub-)contractors involved in a project, the survey should be adapted to include them in the mirroring questions. The mirroring questions are useful to identify gaps between client and contractor in the beginning of a collaboration and aligning both parties in mutual understanding and expectations. In more advanced collaborations, questions could be changed to “one team” instead of the difference between client and contractor. The questions have been developed specific to this project in terms of applicability. When used on other projects without colocation or direct use of counterparts the option of “Not applicable” or “Do not know” should be included to remain a high reliability of the responses.

The construction industry gets increasingly aware of the importance and value of people. Considering the nature of construction projects a certain level of collaboration is needed to successfully deliver a project. Throughout the complete project life cycle of large engineering projects, multiple actors are involved. As in any other industry and if not more, it is crucial to understand how people work and collaborate. Collaboration is positively associated with project performance. This research is conducted, from a managing contractor perspective, to study the formation of a coalition in the construction phase of a large engineering project. The coalition consists of the client, the managing contractor, and subcontractors. The coalition members are critical in finishing the project. The project management intervention is implemented to increase collaboration between coalition members. It should lead to increased organizational effectiveness. However, it remains unclear what the effect of a coalition is. Moreover, it is unclear how people, groups, and the project organization are affected by this intervention...

’What can be improved in the collaboration between general contractor and subcontractor to attain higher project performance and relationship continuity?’. This was the central question in this research. It is found that the design of the contract is basically abandoned. The contract is designed to have few inter-organizational relations, issues should be solved between counterparts which can each call upon their own organization. In practice there is a network of relations between Fluor and IREM. The organization has been divided into 5 clusters, based on which employees are expected to be most interrelated according to the contract’s design. These people (from the same clusters) are in practice, however, not most interrelated which underpins the conclusion, based on the number of ties, that a network structure is in place and that the design mentioned above is abandoned. An other conclusion is that the open communication factors (responsiveness, effectiveness and energy) could be improved between the construction- and office-cluster, within the construction-cluster (3 persons in particular) and one person in the preparation-cluster. After analyzing the perceptions about the collaboration between Fluor and IREM at these improvement areas, several trends have been identified. It has been found that people who consider collaborative practices and relational attitudes to be few or low, often respond slower when issues arise, have a lower conversation effectiveness and drain energy from their interlocutor. A trend has also been observed between their perception of teamworking quality and their responsiveness and effectiveness. The direction of this trend can however not be determined based on this research’s data, it could be self-enforcing. Based on the above mentioned conclusions, recommendations can be made on how to improve the collaboration between the general contractor and subcontractor. The above mentioned result have been gathered by conducting a valued social network analysis (SNA) and executing (and thereby testing) the relational capability (RECAP) tool of Suprapto (2016) in a setting between general contractor and subcontractor. Based on the results of the RECAP tool, it couldn’t be concluded that there are no significant differences between the clusters’ perceptions on collaboration. This, and the conclusion that the cluster structure is abandoned, lead to the conclusion that effort to increase collaboration, project performance and likelihood of relationship continuity, should be directed on company level.