Partnering as a process of unlearning

Over the last decades interest in partnering arrangements has increased enormously. Recent critics have stated that prescriptive approaches dominate the discussion on partnering in construction. There is a lack of multiple perspectives on the partnering phenomenon including its economic, social, organisational and institutional context. Taking this criticism as a starting point, this paper investigates the partnering of a road maintenance contract from an activity-theoretical perspective. The results of the case study show that partnering can be described as a process of unlearning. That is, the implementation of a closer relationship between client and contractor contradicts and challenges the behaviour and working style that project team members had internalized and been used to. Team members are trapped by the beliefs and values they had cultivated throughout the years. Hence, establishing partnering is not only a matter of learning new knowledge and adjusting existing
working processes. First of all, it requires discarding old routines and behaviour and overcoming vicious circles of reinforcing perceptions.