Holistically assessing collaborative culture in the AEC industry.

The insufficient understanding and literature on people collaborating in the ArchitecturalEngineering-Construction (AEC) industry has prompted researchers to investigate this by conducting project-toproject comparisons. A mixed method-based comparison of two construction projects’ design teams was made in
order to present factors to be considered in fostering a positive collaborative culture. Client knowledge and
involvement, existing relationships between teams, stronger informal collaboration, a decentralised leadership
style and the adequate monetary motivation to a firm were found to be most critical. The study also assessed
whether the use of holistic analysis methods can quantitatively show the differences between the projects; in
particular, which project had a more positive collaborative culture. The perception based method used correlated
the variance of perception of the teamwork environment and systemic risk to the projects with a more positive
collaborative culture; 80% of constructs (some postulated attribute of people assumed, to reflect in test
performance) supported the qualitative data. Additionally, assessments of the personalities of respondents from
the project with a more collaborative culture also showed higher collective agreeableness. Findings suggest that
projects with more changes, more assumptions made and uncertainty in requirements affect the collaborative
culture negatively