A comparison of the risk management process between traditional design and build contracts and design and partnering.

In the construction industry, there are various methods for how the client and contractor should work together. Historically, most contracts have been awarded through traditional cooperation, resulting in limited collaboration between the contractor and the client. In recent times, partnering has become increasingly common, based on close collaboration between the client and the contractor. As partnering has gained popularity, the profitability of different collaboration forms has come under scrutiny, as well as which collaboration form contributes to the highest quality of the final product and the lowest cost for the client. The purpose of this work is to examine how incentives and competition will affect the different parties’ approach to risk management within the different collaboration forms. This will be done through three different methods: a literature study, a case study, and interviews, clearly demonstrating how risk management varies depending on the collaboration form applied in the project. The literature study forms the basis for the analysis of the case study and the formulation of the questions asked in the interviews. The case study compares the risk and opportunity assessments of two ongoing construction projects, one using traditional cooperation and the other using partnering. The interview study is based on seven interviews with relevant respondents, each offering their perspective on the collaboration forms. The work shows that incentives and competition will influence the parties eagerness to work with risk management to the extent that it is profitable. Since many partnering agreements have somewhat loose reins, it means that the client must take on greater responsibility for a partnering project to become profitable. The work also highlights that competition will have a significant impact on the contractor's risk allocations depending on the collaboration form applied in the project