Partnering with the tenants: Hong Kong experience

The development of more integrated and collaborative teams has been advocated in construction during the last decade. This notion has generated broad initiatives such as in partnering and alliancing. Such approaches are still evolving, while widely experimented with in the industry and researched in academia. A proliferation of literature is helping to develop a better understanding of their applications in construction projects. As a supplement to this, the paper examines the interplay of stakeholders in partnered refurbishment projects, which in essence involves the participation of tenants (occupants). Drawing upon evidence obtained through interviews of project personnel and a tenant survey in a pilot case study, some practical observations of partnering on refurbishment projects are formulated: first, that partnering can tap more early inputs from the end-users, and thereby increase their satisfaction; second, that feedback and complaints from tenants are tackled more efficiently with partnering arrangements; finally, that some typical problems (e.g. misunderstandings/misinterpretations) still persist despite fairly successful partnering with tenants. The latter is indicative of the same type of partnering hurdles as in construction projects. These observations are also useful in formulating the basis of a more detailed investigation into wider partnering protocols, that closely involve the end-users of occupied refurbishment projects